


How did i get here?

by fabricdragon



Series: Amnesia Shuffle [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BDSM, Canon-Typical Violence, Consent Issues, Developing Relationship, Explicit Consent, Happy Ending, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Sebastian Moran, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Past Sexual Assault, Past Torture, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Amnesia, Threats of Violence, Trust Issues, mormor, mostly - Freeform, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-10-25 11:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17724224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabricdragon/pseuds/fabricdragon
Summary: Directly after the Fall, Sebastian Moran goes to find Moriarty... except he's been injured, somehow...TW: Moriarty has a head injury and temporary amnesia regressing him in mental age.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mickie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickie/gifts).



Sebastian lined up the shot: it would be tricky, with Watson running and dodging through the crowd to get to the building­.  When Watson froze staring up at the roof, and spoke on the phone, though, he was in perfect position– _I should turn on the laser, that dot would be dead center between the eyes…_

He could tell that Sherlock jumped by watching the expression on his friend’s face... _well, Sherlock jumped so no need to shoot him._ He packed up his rifle scope and got out fast–no point waiting for the confirmation. Good thing he had, too; he saw some very professional boys heading his way and barely managed to avoid them.

He never got the confirmation code calling him off.

He dumped the burner phone on his way home, and went to his flat.  After a cup and a smoke he checked his accounts, and the message board…

No confirmation of the call off, but no screaming rants from the boss about skipping out? A chill crept up Sebastian’s spine, _If he’s THAT angry…_  

He momentarily thought about running…

“Fuck it, if I’m going to die it won’t be running.” He cleaned up quickly and changed into one of his good suits–one he knew the boss liked the look of– and went to Moriarty’s favorite home on Conduit Street.  _Maybe I can… talk him into not killing me?_   He thought about some of the threats he’d heard Moriarty use, no… _maybe I can talk him into killing me quickly?_

The door was unlocked.

Sebastian drew his gun and went in… little things were out of place, but nothing major…and Moriarty was lying on the sofa asleep…

“Sir? You didn’t lock the door?” Sebastian put the gun away, but Moriarty didn’t move. “Sir?”

When Sebastian walked closer he saw blood streaks on the sofa, and… Jim’s hair was covered in it–sticky and drying… “…sir?” Sebastian whispered, and then braced for Moriarty jumping up and yelling… nothing.

Steeling his nerves he walked up and dared to put his hand on Moriarty’s neck: his pulse was slow, but steady and strong… and damn it his skin was soft and warm, but there was… there was blood… and… what looked like brains stuck to his hair.

“Sir? I need to check you for injuries…” no response.  Sebastian carefully moved him and found… a lot of blood and other bits, but…no reason for it?  He did have a good sized bump on his head, but…it was as Sebastian was running fingers down the man’s neck that he found a tube, and then a bladder…?  Special effects… to mimic a wound?

_After all this time, and  I get to run my hands all over you… because you’re unconscious.  Figures that’s the only way you’d ever let anyone touch you._

_Now what the hell do I do?_

Sebastian considered as carefully as he could: the boss was fanatical about his appearance, so… _should I clean him up?  But he was also REALLY touchy about his position and dignity…_

“Sir? I think I should clean this up before it sets?”

Nothing.

He eventually got a cloth and cleaned him up as best he could, taking away the bladder and getting rid of the tubing–God knows whose brains those were.

It was just after he had ordered in something to eat that Moriarty finally groaned.

“Sir?”

Moriarty rolled his head to the side and looked over with a pained look, “Who?”

“It’s Sebastian, Sir: you hit your head, judging from the bump… I cleaned you up a bit,” he hesitated and then explained cautiously, “I know how fussy you are about your clothes and hair.”

“I…yes… of course…” Moriarty started to sit up and winced: Sebastian immediately helped him up. “Where am I?” he asked–his Irish accent stronger than usual.

“Your house on Conduit Street.” Sebastian took a deep breath, “I ordered something to eat–I wasn’t certain when you would wake up…you… uh…” he finally trailed off.

“Food… yes… good idea…”  He put a hand up to his head and winced.

“I tried to get you an ice pack, but… now that you can hold it in place do you want another one?”

“Yes… please.”

It wasn’t until he was halfway to the kitchen that the incongruous ‘please’ registered.  He filled the ice bag and came back, watching the man… he was looking around in bewilderment–an expression never seen on Moriarty’s face.

“Do… you remember how you got hurt?”  Sebastian asked hesitantly as he handed the ice bag over.

“…no?”  he looked Sebastian up and down as much as he could with that headache…”You… didn’t hit me…”

“Me?! I would never!”

“I…live here?”

When Sebastian could draw a breath again he answered, “Yes? You… don’t remember?”

“No… I’m sorry…” Moriarty winced, “Please don’t be mad about it… I don’t know what happened.”

“I’m… not …” Sebastian tried to believe this was a trick, but he looked so… small… and confused… “I’m not mad: I’m very worried about you.”

“Do I… are you visiting?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No…” Moriarty smiled hesitantly, “You… you’re very good looking, and you have great taste in clothes… I guess I got lucky?  Are you… are you the…” he looked worried and then started asking about people with names that Sebastian didn’t know.

“I don’t know any of them, sorry?  I know a few people named Bobby or Bob but…”

“I really don’t remember… but… it’s just you then?” he ducked his head under the ice bag, “I don’t… I don’t remember what happened, or how we met, or… do you…see me often?”

“Okay, I think I’m really confused…” Sebastian took a deep breath and… _he looked scared and trying to hide it?  Nothing scared him!_ “My name is Sebastian Moran… you honestly don’t remember me?”

“No… I’m s-sorry…” he smiled nervously, “Am I supposed to leave soon? Or… or do you leave?  I don’t know where to go, and … my house–Mister Charlie’s– was never any place as fancy as Conduit Street… and no one else is here…? Do YOU own it?”

“I’m a bit confused here…” Sebastian meant to say more but the food arrived and he was busy with that. When he finished setting up the table he came back to find Moriarty staring at himself in a mirror–he looked horrified.

“I got food set up… do you feel up to–”

“I’m OLD…!”

“What?”

“I’m OLD!” Moriarty turned wide terrified eyes at him, “how did I get OLD?  Why would you… why would anyone hire me?  How did I get old?”

“Uh… what?” Sebastian began to understand what all those people talked about when they said ‘a cold chill down their spine’ because yeah. “You… how old do you think you should be…?”

“I’m fourteen.”

“What?”

“I’m fourteen!  How… How did…” He took a deep breath and forced the panic back–you could see him doing it.  “What year is it?”

Sebastian told him and he looked stunned.

“I… wait…” He looked around slowly, “You said… I lived here?”

“Yes…you got hurt somehow, but I don’t know how… I came back from an assignment and-”

“Assignment?”

“I’m a sniper…”

Moriarty suddenly fixed those intent eyes on him, blank like a shark and just as deadly:  Sebastian shivered slightly and stood there and took it.

“You… you’re mine?”

“…yes, sir?”

“i… I made it?”

“what?”

“I got rich…I got powerful?”

“Yes to both… although you’ve been… taking some crazy risks lately.”

He looked him up and down, “Wow…where did I find you?”

“Do you want me to answer that?”

“No… it doesn’t matter… God I bet you’re gorgeous under that suit…”

Sebastian could almost feel the world tilt under him, “Err… well… I never had any complaints…”

Moriarty walked up–eyes almost shining with delight– and ran a hand over his arm: that at least was familiar. “So whats this food you ordered? And do I call you Sebastian?”

“Sebastian, Tiger once in a while… Moran if you think I’m being an idiot.” Which was all too often.

“Tiger… Tigerrrr,” he rolled that around in his mouth and said it a few times, it sounded filthy the way he was saying it… and that DID things to Sebastian. “Oh I’m looking forward to finding out why you have THAT nickname…”  he stared at the food, “Whats this?”

“Thai food? Its from one of the places you order from often…”

“Thai?” he looked confused again, “I never had that… i… I like it?”

“Well… you order it and you eat it, I guess I always assumed you liked it?”  Sebastian watched him slowly poke at the food and then marvel at the plates.

“These are mine!  They have magpies on them!”

“You… uh… yes, you like those? You never told me why–you have a custom tea set with them too.”

Sebastian hesitantly helped him sit down and served the food. “I’m really worried about that bump on your head and… well you not remembering things.” _And thinking you’re fourteen, and acting weird._

“I must have been attacked–mugged?– but my clothes are in good shape… for that matter these clothes are fantastic, even if they are a bit stuffy…”

Sebastian tried to convince him to call a doctor and he got angry looking–Sebastian shut up immediately.

“Oh, I DO have you well trained…” Moriarty was looking wickedly at him–miles away from the shyer version of himself that said ‘please’ and was asking if this was Sebastian’s house.

“i… suppose so, sir.”

“Look, my memory will come back–amnesia never lasts very long for real, even if the books say otherwise– so I’ll just take it easy and I’ll be fine.”

“Thinking you’re fourteen?  With all due respect, sir, a lot of your enemies are … well you don’t know how to handle them if you don’t remember…”

He looked aggravated–that expression hadn’t changed–“You’re right…”

Sebastian almost fainted from the shock– _first please, and now saying I was right?–_ luckily Moriarty was looking down at the plate.

“I’ll have to stay… home? Here… until I get my feet back under me.” he looked sour and then looked around the room with bright eyes, “That shouldn’t be so hard: this place is gorgeous.”

“It is your favorite…”

Moriarty startled and stared at him, “Favorite? I have more than one house like this?!”

“Not… like this, no, but… other places you stay in or around London… and… I know you have houses and flats in other cities–I’ve been to some of them.”

He finished his food, “I do like this, even if it’s weird.” He said waving at the take out boxes.

“I’m glad I picked the right menu…” Sebastian cleaned everything up and was trying to figure out what he should do now when Moriarty ran a hand over his arm and across his back as he did…

“I don’t remember what we normally do…” Moriarty’s voice was wicked, “So… we’ll experiment…”

“Experiment?”

“Do I have any rope in the house?” He asked thoughtfully, “I HAVE to have rope if I stay here a lot…”

“Yes, yes you do… you keep a trunk full in the spare room.” Sebastian never found out WHY he did, and wasn’t sure it was healthy to know.

“Oh GOOD… because I don’t know if it’s our usual thing but I plan on tying you up and riding a Tiger all night.” And he ran upstairs like a kid…

_Wait…_

_What?!_

_But… Moriarty… never… and he thinks he’s fourteen, what?_

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knives, showers, discussion... you know, a normal day in the life of a really bewildered sniper and an amnesiac.  
> (mind the tags)

Sebastian slowly walked up the stairs to find Moriarty standing in one of the bedrooms staring around as though he’d never seen it… _well i guess he didn't remember seeing it._

“Sir? Seriously… i think we need to figure out how to call a doctor for you…”

“No.”

 _I am totally not used to this_ .  Sebastian tried to think: _Moriarty was someone to be obeyed, and once he made up his mind you shut the fuck up, but right now he… thought he was fourteen and didn't remember things…_ “You… uh...look, sir, this could be pretty serious or maybe you just need some medication… this isn't a field injury like i’m used to treating…”

Moriarty turned to look at him thoughtfully, “What if it was?”

“Pardon?”

“What if it WAS…”  Moriarty waved at him, “Pretend: you can't go to a doctor: how would you treat this?”

Sebastian felt a lot better once he was on familiar ground, so he  considered. “Well, you have an obvious bump on the head: I’d keep cold packs on it and watch you for signs of a brain bleed or a concussion or any other head trauma emergencies… like a seizure or anything.  I’d also give you a LIGHT painkiller and make you rest.”

“Then do that.”

Sebastian nodded slowly, “I need to get a penlight to check your eyes, or… well you probably have a penlight somewhere…”

Moriarty looked thoughtful, “Penlights would be where you need tools, or  small detail work.”

Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll check the kitchen drawers if you check your office… uh… I’m not allowed in your office , sir.”

“You aren’t?”

“I don't think you let ANYONE in your office.”

“Where’s my office?”

“The public one you don't care about is downstairs, but as far as i know your real one is in your bedroom.”

Moriarty looked around, “Isn’t… Isn't this my bedroom?”

“Not as far as i know: this is the guest bedroom?”

Moriarty frowned, “I thought it was… oh… where’s my bedroom… show me?”

Sebastian walked him to his room, on the way he cleared his throat, “The box of rope is in the closet in the room you were in… i know that because one time  you had me stay here and i found it while I was putting my rifle away..”

Moriarty seemed about to say something when Sebastian stepped aside to let him into the master bedroom.  He didn’t say anything after all, just walked in slowly and looked around- he was frowning. Sebastian stood in the doorway and tried not to fidget.

“This… this costs money… a lot of money...but…”

“But?”

Moriarty turned to look at him with a very puzzled expression. “The other room had places to tie people to and more… i guess… i don't let...wait… i wouldn't need to?”

“I have no idea what the question is, sir.”

“I… do we not… you said i didn't let you in here? I guess i just use this room to myself?”  his face suddenly brightened in a way Sebastian had never seen. “I have a room all to myself…” he went quiet, talking to himself more than Sebastian, “That… yeah, that would be nice…”

“Uh… you… didn't have a room to yourself at fourteen?” Sebastian took a step forward and stopped, remembering Moriarty’s insistence that he wasn't to enter this room without orders..

“No.” Moriarty’s face went blankly neutral, “I didn’t.”  He searched quickly through drawers and finally came up with a small torch. “Will this do?”

“Better than nothing…”

Sebastian walked back to the guest room, and had him sit on the chair to check his pupils- a bit slower to contract than he’d expect but at least even- and then checked his pulse and so on.

“Alright, you don't seem in immediate danger and IF this were combat conditions i’d consider it to be something i could worry about later.”

“Good, so... “ Moriarty grinned and stood up, “Good thing we’re in this room, ‘Tiger’ since that's where the rope is…”

Sebastian braced himself, “No.”

Moriarty’s face twisted with familiar rage and he started screaming at him, “You think I’d let you? That I have to do what YOU want?”  and suddenly he had his knife and was…

He was holding it- threatening- like someone who was familiar with it-good with it even- but not… not  the way Moriarty used his knife… _he was only fourteen, of course._

Sebastian moved backwards steadily, letting Moriarty think he was  forcing him back while he watched his style-reminiscent of his adult self but not nearly as certain.  He was occasionally spitting words and threats at him, but compared to what he’d heard Moriarty say casually? This was nothing.

He waited until Moriarty lunged with the knife and grabbed his wrist, twisting and turning the man with his own momentum…

“Let me GO!” Moriarty snarled as Sebastian held him close, both wrists caged. “I will SKIN you!”

“You probably would,” Sebastian allowed, “Which is why i am NOT letting you go yet.”. He pushed him up against the wall to get the knife out of his hand and search him for other weapons…

Moriarty went pliable and small again suddenly, “I was… i was just teasing… you… you like that don’t you?  I didn't remember... “ he was biting his lip and looking over his shoulder at Sebastian. “I’ll be good, you...you don’t have to…”

“Boss… i have NO idea what is going on in that brilliant brain of yours-and i’m not sure you do either.”

“I thought… i thought you… i guess i thought i was the one to tie you down, but… you …”

“Stop.” Sebastian had never imagined he would use military command voice on Moriarty, but  if he was going to die he was going to show up in Hell with a damn good story…

Moriarty stopped, flinched slightly and  then braced himself a bit.

“Right now you think you’re fourteen, right?”

“...I am fourteen.”

“The Jim Moriarty i know-”

“Who?” he interrupted and twisted to look at him and then lowered his eyes, “sorry.”

Sebastian hesitated- _I’ll go back to that_ -and then went on:  “The grown man that i know is my boss, and a genius, and if he told me to do something that didn't make sense I’d just assume I was the one who didn't understand, BUT it's become pretty obvious that right now you don't have enough information to make those decisions.”  Sebastian finished stripping the few remaining weapons off of him.

“I need to see if there are any other injuries i missed, and you need a shower.”

Moriarty, still looking wary and keeping his eyes down asked, “you want me to strip?”

“I’m going to let go of you and step back, and you are going to  take everything off and let me check you over-JUST as if this was a field situation and we didn't have a medic, remember?”

He looked very puzzled but didn't move as Sebastian let go of him and stepped away.

“You…” he rubbed his wrists and turned to face Sebastian-he wasn't playing small and coy anymore, but he didn't look like he was ordering him around either. “You want me, even… even old… you do!  But you said you work for me… i…” his face got an angry expression that was familiar but off just a bit, “I don’t get it?”

“I’m putting off ANY and ALL discussions until  you get showered and i check you for other injuries.” Sebastian said it firmly and hoped his own confusion wasn’t showing too much.

Moriarty slowly stripped off his clothes.  He looked at them as he took them off and then started dropping them to the floor.

“If i needed any evidence that you weren’t thinking straight…” Sebastian sighed, “the way you’re treating your clothes would be enough.”

“I didn’t know if i could move… you… I don’t understand you.”

“Yeah, well imagine how i feel?”

“I don’t know…”

Sebastian frowned as Moriarty turned slowly: he had some recent marks- minor- and some scars that seemed out of place, but they were clearly old.

“Does anything other than that bump on your head hurt?”

“My back, just a little…” Moriarty was watching him cautiously, “And, well,  i mean other than just now?” when Sebastian nodded he said, “a lot of places feel like… like i got sunburned?  Sort of hot and achy?”

Sebastian held his hands out where Moriarty could see them, “I want to look you over… and i think the bathroom lighting might be better.”

“You...you do want me… don’t you?” He was sounding  more and more uncertain.

Sebastian winced, “you are going to kill me when you wake up, i just know it… look can you try to remember i did my best and … make it quick?”

He grinned at that, “I guess i didn't do too bad for myself…”  he trailed off as Sebastian stripped out of his own clothes. “Wow…”

Sebastian couldn't help but  preen a bit, but he wasn't fool enough to take his eyes off the man. “Alright.. Shower, and I’ll check you over in the good light…”

“You...arent…” he looked dubiously toward the shower.

“You still have gunk in your hair, and i need to know if you have any injection marks…”

“Oh… OH!” Moriarty suddenly looked down at his arms, “You think someone drugged me?”

“I have no idea, but… those Holmes boys play dirty.”

“Who?”

“Sherlock Holmes and his older brother Mycroft.”

Moriarty walked into the bathroom slowly, andwatched Sebastian as he got the shower set up. “Who are they?”

Sebastian dragged a hand through his hair, “Mycroft is big bad news-has cameras and spies all over and held you in interrogation for a while...but YOU never seemed scared of him.  Sherlock?” Sebastian sighed, “do you want my opinion, or what you said?”

“Both?”

Sebastian cursed the fact that he was in a shower with the man and… getting a REALLY close look… and not doing anything. “You said he was you… and you seemed pretty obsessed.  You also apparently had him chase after a murder of some kid at a pool.”

“What?” Moriarty stopped washing up and looked up at him, “Wait… who?”

“Some kid who died and you had his shoes?” Sebastian shrugged. “Sherlock apparently noticed it was a murder but he was a kid at the time”

“So no one believed him…” Moriarty was staring at him with wide eyes, “He’s alive?   I found him?”

Sebastian frowned, “He’s dead now- you forced him to jump off a roof or we’d shoot his friends.”

“I WHAT?!”

“Sniper, remember?” Sebastian frowned suddenly and took Moriarty by the shoulder and turned him. “Do you know where you got that bruise? No of course you don't remember… let me look…”

Moriarty kept trying to turn and look at him, “Why would i want him to jump off a roof?!”

“How the hell would i know? You just told me to shoot his roommate if he didn't.” Sebastian frowned at a bruised area near his shoulder blade. “That… could be a dart…”

“What?”

“This bruise…” he touched it gently, “Finish washing up and let me see it-i’ll check the jacket  and shirt for marks too.”

Moriarty started to dry off and then pressed the towel against himself, “Oh my God this is so SOFT!”

Sebastian smiled faintly, “Yeah, you… well sometimes i swore you didn't even pay attention to the stuff around you, and other times… well you totally do.”

Sebastian got him out under the lights and looked… yes definitely a dart mark… “That's a dart, sir… someone hit you with something like a tranq dart?”

“Not you…”

“I was watching Watson-Sherlock’s roomate.  When it was obvious Sherlock jumped i got out of there… and… uh… i never got the official message calling me off the job- or any message.  I Came here to… find out what happened.”

“Wait…” Moriarty frowned, “You don’t LIVE here?”

“Huh? No…”

“But…”he edged back out into the bedroom-Sebastian stayed between him and the weapons. “You… said you stayed here…”

“A few times.  Usually i just came to pick something up or drop something off, or because you wanted to go over plans with me… you… as far as i can tell you didn't LIKE people staying over.”

“So… what do we normally do?”

Sebastian made a serious mistake and closed his eyes briefly. “We don’t normally do anything, damn it.”

“What do you mean we don't normally do anything?” Moriarty asked him casually, while pointing a gun at him.

“Fuck… uh… well that… i mean we don’t.” Sebastian watched warily- _where the hell had he gotten that from?_

“You wanted me, and… you didn't object to my touching you?”

Sebastian sighed and kept his hands in sight, “You touch me like that all the time… and…” Sebastian glared at him, “Fine, if you’re going to shoot me for it so be it: You always run your hands over me like that and … that's it. YES I was interested; NO we never did anything, because the one time i tried to express an interest…”

“We… haven't?” Moriarty looked Sebastian over, “Why not?”

“I don't know… you tease a lot and talk like you’re sleeping with half the guards, but… the one time i tried to express an interest you threatened me and then went back to talking business.”

“...You’re…” Moriarty chewed his lip again, “i want to do something with you now… except i want you tied to the bed.”

Sebastian figured he already had a gun aimed at him so it didn't matter, and closed his eyes again counting to ten and then opened them again. “You think you’re fourteen.”

“So?”

“That’s not even legal.”

Moriarty smirked, “You care?”

“Yes, and… you shouldn't even know what you’re doing at that age!”

“Well, first of all, as much as it feels like a time travel story to me… I’m not physically fourteen…” he tilted his head, “But you… wanted me? Grown up me?”

Sebastian muttered, “First time i ever got to run my hands over you was checking to find out why you were unconscious.”

Moriarty smirked again and gestured toward the bed. “Then this is your lucky day, Tiger: i have no idea why i never tied you to the bed before, but…”

“Sir…”

“Get on the bed,” he said in a soft voice that raised the hair on the back of Sebastian’s neck, “and get the handcuffs out of the bedside table-one on each wrist, if you please.”

Sebastian walked over, keeping his hands in sight and got out the cuffs, “This is a phenomenally bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Someone shot you with a dart full of unknown drugs.  You have a weird form of amnesia where you think you’re fourteen.” Sebastian sat down on the bed-he figured he’d be less threatening that way- “You.. you’re good with a knife even now, but i’ve seen you use a knife before, as an adult, and...you’re better than that.”

“I would hope i would get better…”

“Right now, as dangerous as you are”-Moriarty visibly brightened up at being called dangerous- “you arent anywhere near your usual levels…”

He frowned, “you… you think i’m in danger from someone else?”

“Whatever happened to you, you’re still brilliant: are you in danger from me, seriously?”

He stood there for a long time- _well, it probably felt like a long time because he was pointing a gun at me_ \- and then said, “no.  you want me, but… you don't want to hurt me… you… you didn't even take the chance to put me down and take me…”

Sebastian held up the cuffs, “If i’m cuffed to the bed and anyone comes in, or even… you just pass out… i can't do anything fast enough to protect you.”

Moriarty stood there with a neutral ‘considering’ expression that was reassuringly normal for him.  After a while he sagged just a bit. “I don’t remember… I don’t remember any of it… i don’t KNOW you...but i have no idea why i wouldn't have…”

“Are you going to shoot me?”

“...no.” he sighed and put the gun down.

Sebastian carefully put the cuffs back in the bedside table, but he stayed sitting on the bed to avoid any misunderstandings. “I… I can only assume this has something to do with Mycroft Holmes, but i don’t know why you wouldn't be back in his lock up…”

“I’ll… Either this IS a time travel thing, and adult me will be back and I’ll wake up back….” his face hardened, “Back at Mister Charlie’s… and DAMN it will be hard  to go back… I would have thought seeing proof that i made it would feel better, but… i’m just terrified i’m going to wake up back where i was and this will all be gone.”

“Ok… if this was a time travel thing, you’d have a pretty crystal clear memory of where you were and what you were doing before you woke up here: do you?”

Moriarty slowly walked over and sat down on the bed, “No… not really.  Just… i know i was fourteen, i remember Mister Charlie… i remember some of my clients…”

 _Oh bloody hell…_ “That’s… what i was afraid you meant by all this… you were… uh.. Working? At fourteen?”

He got a bleak smile and a sarcastic, “Obviously.”

Sebastian very slowly put his arm around the man- watching for any sign that he didn't want it. “I kept hearing that, but i couldn't believe it because i couldn't picture you ever doing anything like that…” he considered, “Well, unless it was an act-undercover- for some reason: you’ve done some pretty bizarre stuff as an act.”

Moriarty very slowly leaned into him-he was tense like a street cat getting petted for the first time. “I thought you were a client, and i’d passed out… when i woke up.”

“You asked if i hit you, but you sounded disbelieving.”

“You didn't look at me like the guys who pay to hit me… i figured you maybe got a bit enthusiastic and…i hit my head on a wall or something-that it was an accident- you’re strong,  it could have happened.”

Sebastian took a deep breath and tried to keep focused. “I think you have a weird form of amnesia-i don't think it’s time travel.  I think you did hit your head because you have a good sized bump there and some bruising in other places like you fell down hard, but you have a dart mark like someone hit you with a tranq dart. Somehow you got back here, and passed out on the sofa.”

“I don’t… I don't understand any of this.”

“Since you won't go to a doctor there isn't much i can do other than try to protect you, and keep you hydrated-which reminds me  you need more water-and...While i would love to do more than just put my arm around you, especially since we’re both nude, i’m pretty sure you’re going to kill me when you recover and i would like it to be quick…”

“That would be stupid, and i’m not stupid.”

“No, you’re a genius, but you… uh… well you have a temper and i don’t always understand how you think-ok, i almost never understand how you think.”

“You said it yourself, i’m… not as capable as i am old.” he looked like admitting that was physically painful. “You disarmed me and … you could have done anything, but you didn't.  I’d be an idiot to throw that away.”

“I hope you still think so when you recover.”

“What… if i don't?”

Sebastian had been trying not to think about that. “Then… we are in serious trouble because i have no idea how to get into your computers, or where you keep most of your money, or who else might try to take you down if they saw weakness…”

“You’re posh… don't you have money?”

“No. i mean, you pay well?  But i got disowned. I have some money put aside, but nothing like you do.”

“I’d have… cash.” He was frowning, “Hidden in every place i own…”

“I know you do, i have no idea where.” Sebastian gently turned the man to face him-and it was strange to see such open expressions on his face. “Let's get you more water, and some sleep, and see what you remember in the morning, okay?”

Moriarty ran a hand down his chest, “I still want to tie you to the bed and make you beg.”

 _Jesus, how does he go from nothing to sex obsessed? Is this because he hit his head?_ “Look… how about if we see how you’re doing tomorrow?”

He nodded slowly, “You… called me a name i don't know… is that the name i  use now?”

“Uh… Jim Moriarty-James to some people.”

He smirked, “I think i know where i got the last name from;  that's kind of funny: my name is Jim, though.”

“As i said, I’m Sebastian…”

“So get the weapons near the bed in case someone does try something, and… i guess find yourself something to sleep in?” he looked at the door, “I guess my stuff would be in my room…”

He got up and walked out and Sebastian took a minute to pull himself together. “Damned strangest day yet…”  he found a pair of pajamas in his size and couldn't help but laugh because they had tiger stripes.

Much to his surprise Moriarty walked in a few minutes later dressed for bed.

“Uh… sir?”

“You can’t protect me in another room, and… if anyone is after me they might expect me in MY room, but not in yours.” He shrugged. “Also you can be right there if i get sick or anything.”

“O...kay?”

And Moriarty drank another glass of water, pulled all the pillows to his side and went to sleep…

In my bed…

Sebastian made sure the weapons were in grab range and hoped he lived to wake up.

  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> unexpected visitors... unwelcome ones at that.

Sebastian’s military training woke him up fast when the other person moved.  He stared at Moriarty getting out of bed in confusion before he remembered… _Oh, not a really weird dream then…_

Moriarty just went into the bathroom, nothing unusual or threatening, so Sebastian got up slowly and started going through his normal morning workout.  He eventually heard a shower start up and decided that coffee and food would go a long way toward making today liveable.

He went down to the kitchen and started trying to assemble a breakfast… _eggs… okay, bread… really fancy ass toaster that scares me… beans… sausages...um...tea kettle, but no coffee?  Ok, he must prefer tea_ -Sebastian put on the kettle. it was while he was hunting down ingredients that he found a small french press, a grinder, and coffee beans so he started making himself coffee while everything cooked.

“Uh… hi?”

“Sir?  I assume you prefer tea, since i had to actually HUNT for the coffee…”

“Yes? I mean...i had some really good coffee once, and that was better than average tea, but i never did figure out why that coffee was good…”

“I take it you still only remember to about age fourteen?”

“I’m… not sure.” he sat down cautiously and watched Sebastian make food. “I have weird memories that… well they didn't happen? Only i’m beginning to think they hadn’t happened YET.”

“Well that's good? I mean if your memories are coming back?”

“It's… confusing.”

“I know you didn't tell me a lot-just what i needed for my assignments usually- but if i can help make sense of it…”

“If.. if it starts making enough sense that i could even describe it to someone…” Moriarty sighed and then looked hopeful toward the breakfast.

“I’m not the best cook, but i figured beans on toast, eggs and sausage, and caffeine was a good start.” He nodded at the toaster, “I finally figured that out-toasters shouldn't be that fancy.”

“I still can’t get over the idea that this… is mine.”

They were almost done eating when both of them turned and reached for weapons-someone was trying to open the front door…

Moriarty got up and started to head for the back door: Sebastian grabbed him and pulled him behind cover.

“Sir, they may expect us to go out the back…”

He winced, “an ambush, right…”

“Go upstairs… get the rest of the weapons, and be ready to move.” Sebastian was calculating odds and angles, and cursing himself for not moving them both last night.  Moriarty looked at him oddly and then appeared to make a decision and took off, moving fast and low and quietly.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of increasingly obvious  sounds at the front door, the back door opened noiselessly.  Sebastian was going to try to get the man alive, but he moved like a pro, so Sebastian threw the knife into the man’s throat.  The man behind him looked startled and tried to get off a shot, but his friend falling blocked his aim: Sebastian shot him.

He heard a noise upstairs and started to turn without thinking-the men coming in the front door all had guns aimed right at him…

“He killed them!” a voice from the backdoor hissed- must have been a third..

“Orders were everyone in the building alive.” one of the front door people snapped. “Retrieve him and clean it up.”

Alive meant chances later… Sebastian carefully put the safety on and put the gun down.

They shoved him to his knees roughly and cuffed him-made a lot of snide comments about his tiger striped jammies, too.  Then they kept him on his knees while more very professional people came into the building and fanned out searching and securing the building.

Sebastian expected gunshots, or yelling from upstairs, but… nothing?

After a long time one of the men came up and kicked him-he was careful not to break a rib or do any permanent damage but he knew how to make it hurt. “Where is he?”

“You broke in: i have no idea who you’re looking for.” Sebastian snapped back, pretty much by reflex.

“Moriarty! Where is he?!”

Sebastian kept the relief off his face and glared back, “Damned if i know! I came here to get my follow-up orders and he wasn't here!” _That’s plausible, stick with that… he got out? Hid?  Jesus, he thinks he’s fourteen: he doesn't know where to go… does he even understand about the cameras?_

One of the other men-one of the men who had been taking out the two bodies he’d killed- snarled, “If he’s not going to answer, we should shoot him.”

“I did answer: not my fucking fault you don't LIKE the answer-” Sebastian was snarling back when someone clubbed him in the back of the head.

 _Nausea, pain…_ he kept his eyes lidded and lay limply on the floor assessing: _nothing too serious, but i should play it up…_ he saw blood dripping off his head and pooling on the floor- _scalp wounds bleed like a son-of-a-bitch._

He heard some arguments about hitting him, taking him in for interrogation, and more people reporting in that there was no sign of their target…

Some of the men were commenting a LOT about finding  condoms and lube- _guess they didn't have a sex life?_ -and the ropes and leather cuffs…Sebastian hadn’t known there were leather cuffs, just the handcuffs…

Something about cameras and drugs...

He considered how hard it was to track the conversation: _maybe I do have a bit of a concussion._

and then one of their phones crackled into walkie-talkie mode:

“If the prisoner has useful information and you ruin it we’ll all be in trouble: load him into the car in the back and we’ll take him in while you keep searching.”

The man who’d kicked him nodded and gave orders and  some other men dragged him out back to a government car: He was shoved into the back-uncomfortably with his hands behind him and his head spinning-and one of the men got into the back next to him.

The man in the passenger seat didn't say a word-looked like he might be napping- but the driver asked, “Do we need to take Tiger there to medical first? He’s bleeding on the seats.”

Sebastian didn't hear the reply because the intonation on the word Tiger was teasing and familiar… he looked up at the rear view and met Moriarty's eyes.

 _Oh thank God-wait, why would he bother?  Later…_ He let himself slump further over onto his guard in the back seat, pining his arm.

He was rather awkwardly trying to move Sebastian when  the driver-Moriarty- pulled over into an alley . “Look, lets get him better secured in the back seat and you can ride up front and keep an eye on him, alright?  What hit him anyway?”

“Henry,” the man sighed, “He was friends with Gerald-” He looked up into the driver’s face when Moriarty opened the door and before he could react Moriarty had his gun off him and was holding it casually into his stomach.

“Tiger, i’ll toss you the handcuff keys.”

Sebastian had his hands free in a moment. “We have to watch out for CCTV cameras, sir.”

“My head is down into the car and this nice gentleman is going to put the cuffs on and keep you company in the back seat, isn't he?”

He tried to argue but Sebastian just pulled his arms back and cuffed him. “Do you have an extra set?”

Moriarty’s wicked bedroom smirk: “you have to ASK?” and he tossed him another pair.

Sebastian cuffed his ankles together-luckily the man was thin- and took the gun from Moriarty. “Do you want me to drive?”

“No. just direct.” he got back in the front seat and pulled back out into traffic.

The prisoner tried to yell or something, but Sebastian put the gun into his crotch and he shut up like a smart guy.

Sebastian gave Moriarty directions to a garage that had a stashed car in it. “I’m betting this car is tracked, Sir, once we go too far off route… i’m taking us to a spare car.”

“Good.”

Their prisoner started talking-but quietly because he had sense. “I… I don't know enough to be worth-”

“Hopefully you're wrong.” Moriarty said idly, “or you’re going to spend a lot of time screaming for no good reason.” he considered, “especially since i killed the men who were supposed to be in this car before i could ask them too much.”

Mister Sensible was very quiet for the rest of the drive.

Sebastian got them into the garage, and they hauled the man out and stripped off anything  that could even remotely be trackable… Sebastian helped Moriarty to do the same to his own outfit…

Which turned out to be from the dead body in the trunk next to his bag… as opposed to the dead body in the passenger seat that was very artfully arranged to look like  he was sitting up dozing.

Once they had their prisoner secured, and gagged, in the trunk of the new car, and Moriarty’s gear in the back seat, Sebastian took over driving.

“Thank you for coming to get me, sir, but… i don't understand why you did-or how you got away for that matter.”

“I almost didn't.” he said very calmly, “but i don't know where anything is or, as you pointed out, who my enemies are.”

“Ok, point…”

“And you are the only person i know is on my side-more or less.”

“More or less?”

“So far? At least until it costs you too much.”

“You were really this cynical at fourteen? Damn… i didn't get that cynical until i’d been in the military for a while.”

“Anyway,” he continued without dignifying that with a comment, “As to how i got out?  You said it was my favorite house, so i figured i would have built escapes into it… and they’d be places that made sense to me, so i found one.  Also i had an emergency bag stashed in the same place.”

“You always were a genius…”

“Oh, i grabbed extra weapons and money, and i took the bloody clothes… and started the timer.”

“Timer?”

“Yeah, the escape route had a bomb in it.  Simple enough, nothing fancy… i assume it will take the whole place up, but i don't know-it looked small.”

Sebastian couldn't help but smile, “And that’s one thing i loved about working for you: you always had everything planned for somehow…”

“...was… there anything you didn't like working for me?” Moriarty’s voice was back to sounding cautious and not as confident.

“Want me to be honest?”

“Yes.”

“Your crazy bad temper, and the way you changed your moods so fast… and an awful lot of the time you had… well you didn't seem to have any sympathy for ‘shit went wrong’ in the field.”  he cleared his throat, “I was coming over to try to talk you into not killing me… because i left without the confirmed call off on the shot. I mean, the conditions were met, but usually there was a confirmation?  And there wasn't, but there were people looking for a sniper-people like the ones at the house.”

“You...did the job? But you… thought i’d kill you anyway?”

“The assignment was to shoot John Watson-Sherlock’s roommate and friend- if Sherlock didn't jump… unless you called me off, of course.  I had a beautiful shot lined up, but even if i hadn't seen the fuss on the street from the jump i would have known it from Watson’s face… kind of felt sorry for him-another military man who got  dumped in civilian life.” Sebastian shook his head and went back to driving. “Sorry, the clonk on the head might have made me a bit more melancholy than usual.”

“Are we far enough  out of London to let me drive?”

“Probably; let me find a place to pull over… anyway, i went home and checked for messages and… nothing. Not even you screaming at me for not waiting for the call off… so i figured you must be REALLY mad…”

“I grew up to be an idiot.” Moriarty sounded disgusted. “Sure  be mad at you for not following orders, but… if you think i’d kill someone loyal and good at their job over something minor… that's…”

“Some days you wouldn't… but… yeah some days you would.”

“Great.”

Sebastian finally found someplace to pull off the road and change drivers.  He gave Moriarty the directions-and it was WEIRD to give him directions to one of his own places- and lay back in the passenger seat for just a minute…

...

“Wake up; we’re here.”

“Huh? Wrr?” sebastian’s head was pounding and he felt like crap… oh, right, concussion. “Sorry about passing out on you…”

Moriarty snickered, “That's usually a line for in bed, not in a car.”

Sebastian  decided that anything he said would be the wrong thing and got out of the car  and tried to stretch. “Ow… yeah that bastard hit me too hard, and they were none too gentle with the handcuffs and stuff either…”

“Well, i checked that the bastard in the trunk survived, and that's all i checked.  You can kick him around?”

Sebastian carried in the bags and then came back out for the prisoner.  He’d peed himself at some point in the drive and looked quite a bit worse for wear-and was probably losing circulation  from the cuffs-but he’d survive with no permanent harm… from that.

“Up you go!” Sebastian hauled him out of the trunk and into the house.  This house had a nice soundproof easy to clean basement, and he headed right there.  The guy tried to struggle a bit, but Moriarty threatened to hamstring him and he stopped.

“He seriously has some  sense…” Sebastian pointed out.

“True.”

Moriarty waited until Sebastian had him secured in a chair and then cut the gag out of his mouth, “So… let's start with the very basics: what were you EXPECTING to find, hmm?”

He coughed and tried to get his mouth wet, so Sebastian gave him some water. “That, by the way, is for being a sensible fellow and not making my headache worse.”

“...i… uh…” he looked back and forth between the two of them. “I was low enough on the seniority that i got sent off to babysit while everyone else looked for Moriarty… i … really don't know much.”

Moriarty just leaned on the wall and looked bored, or blank...he almost disappeared into the shadows in the dark clothes. Sebastian noted that the Moriarty that was- adult Moriarty- would have made more commentary or  done something to rattle the man more, but bored was pretty bad if you knew him.

“Maybe just tell us what you did know? I mean you knew you were going there to look for Moriarty…” Sebastian  wasn't used to playing the good cop, but… the guy had been sensible.

“I think I’m getting bored, Tiger…” Moriarty said it in a flat tone entirely unlike his usual histrionics-if anything it was more terrifying.

Sensible dude thought so too: “We were going there to find you-Moriarty- and  we were told you would be unconscious maybe? That you might be dead, or unconscious, and that you’d be sick at least… we didn't EXPECT anyone else, per se, but  it was planned for…”

“Good boy.” Moriarty flashed him a grin that was half a step from ripping his throat out-Sensible cowered… Sebastian flinched a bit too and it wasn't aimed at him. “Why would i be dead or unconscious?”

“I wasn’t told….” he looked at the expression on Moriarty’s face and added fast, “But our mission leader was talking to one of the other men about drugs…?”

Sebastian sighed, “So WHICH department do you work for?”

“I’m MI5…”

Moriarty just looked at him with his blank eyed look and the guy started babbling.  He was MI5, a few of the other people were MI6, and some of the other people were some kind of SIS but he had never seen them before.

“That sounds like Holmes to me…” Sebastian looked at Moriarty and back at Sensible.

Moriarty moved away from the wall and very softly drew the flat of the blade down Sensible’s face. “You seem like the sort of man who listens where he isn't supposed to, and has good ears… i used to work with a fellow like you-pity what happened to him.  Now, Sebastian seems to like you...so why not keep being a sensible sort and tell us what you figured out.” Moriarty’s voice was softer-and yes, younger sounding- and Sebastian shivered.

Sensible looked panicked at Moriarty and then looked over at Sebastian for reassurance.

Sebastian gave him a bit more water. “You DID overhear a lot you weren’t supposed to, didn't you?” He nodded. “Well?”

“I don't think we all work for the same people usually… one of the people giving us our mission brief  worked for MI6 and I heard him use a code phrase or two, but i don’t know what it means… i really don't!”

Sebastian could kind of sympathize with him: being in over his head. “Just tell us everything-all of it- and let Mister Moriarty figure it out.”

Sebastian ended up feeding him a sandwich, and more water, and getting him cleaned up while he babbled out bits and pieces and unrelated sounding things… but even Sebastian could piece together some of it from what he said. if Moriarty had had his memory he would have had this all solved in no time,but he didn't and that was the problem.  Moriarty was still brilliant though; he asked idle sounding questions, and if sometimes they were things that Moriarty should have already known it just sounded like he was testing the man.

Eventually they left him chained in the basement-but out of consideration to his cooperation he got a chair, a mat, and some snacks as well as enough slack in his chain to reach the drain-and went upstairs.

“I don’t know who those codenames are.” Sebastian admitted. “I expect you would normally.”

Moriarty looked thoughtfully at him, “You said i called this Mycroft Holmes ‘the Iceman’ sometimes? Would he be Antarctica?”

“That… would make sense, although code names don’t always.”

“So Porlock- whoever that is-thinks Antarctica is too personally involved to have good judgement on this, and is working behind his back…” Moriarty was talking softly, almost to himself.

“Uh… what?  Where did you get that?”

“From him: the way he said things, the way he described what he heard… it sounds like the code names he heard are all at similar heights over his head, but that Porlock is acting behind Antarctica’s back, and Love isn't trusted? Maybe because he’ll tell Antarctica…”

Sebastian couldn't help but smile, “You’re the genius, boss.  I didn't get that, but it was obvious that some of the departments weren’t talking to each other: of course that happens in the military a lot, too.”

“The issue is he didn't hear enough, and his memory isn't quite good enough to repeat things he didn't understand perfectly…” Moriarty sat and muttered and drummed his fingers in a familiar fashion while Sebastian got them both some food.

After they ate Moriarty sat back, “So… if i have this figured out right, and i may not-i HATE missing information!” Moriarty’s voice shifted suddenly into a snarl and he hit the table.

Sebastian nodded, “It… must be really frustrating, being dropped at fourteen into your adult life…”

“There are several people who are all way over his head-they may not be equal, or they may- that he heard mentioned: Antarctica, Love, Porlock, and Stachis.” Moriarty  tapped a finger on each name.

“Let’s assume Antarctica is this Mycroft Holmes, in which case he wasn't directly involved in THIS because they thought he was too close…”

“Compromised,” Sebastian nodded, “Which would make sense since it’s his brother involved…”

“... and Love is on his side, or at least close enough that they don’t trust him with this…”

“Right.”

“Porlock is the person behind  breaking in after me to retrieve me-everyone in the house alive, you said.”

Sebastian nodded, “Ok.”

“And Stachis is… someone who has resources… that they used… so is working with Porlock… but it didn't sound like they were directly involved…”

Sebastian carefully put a hand out and touched Moriarty’s hand-he looked up startled-”Seriously, you’re brilliant.  I didn't get that at all, but now that you say it it seems obvious.”

The hesitant smile that crossed Moriarty’s face was breathtaking. “Umm… well… yeah, i always was,but… thanks?  Usually people were scared of me, or...hated me for being weird.”

“So… what do we DO with this information? For that matter what do we do with Mister Sensible?”

“I… need to think.. And i need to look at the news and see what's going on with… with me, and Sherlock..”

Sebastian nodded, “After we check on the immediate news, can we take the time to sleep?”

“I’d like to do a hell of a lot more than sleep,” Moriarty looked Sebastian over again, “but… yeah.. It’s been a long day and you still have blood in your hair.”

Sebastian got him logged into the house computer-and it was WRONG the way he marveled at it- and went off to shower and change… the Tiger Pajamas were  somewhat the worse for wear so he tossed them into the laundry. There wasn't any clothing in his size here, but there were some basic things like boxers that fit well enough.

“Can i call someone to bring me a change of clothes?” he asked as he walked back in to speak to Moriarty.

“Can you be sure you can trust anyone?” Moriarty answered without looking up. “The explosives must have been nastier than i thought, or rigged with something else… their reporting  heavy damage and a lot of ‘firefighters’ died inside the building… i guess that would be the agents that were searching…” he looked up and trailed off. “You...uh… that’s a nice look on you.”

 _Fourteen_ . Sebastian reminded himself. _He thinks he’s fourteen_. “Thank you… your turn in the shower.”

“I’m not actually fourteen, you know, since that seems to be bothering you-even if i feel like I’m fourteen.  The mirror says otherwise.”

“I uh… still feel like I’d be taking advantage… also i still think you would kill me when you recovered.”

Moriarty stood up and stretched, cracking his neck the way he did. “I’m taking my shower. Finish up down here and meet me in the bedroom.”

This is a terrible idea, but i do need to stay close by to guard him… “Yes… sir… i still think its a bad idea.”

“Who’s the genius here, Tiger?”

“You are.”

“Even when i think I’m fourteen?”

“... yeah.”

“I risked my neck to go back and rescue you…didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir.”

“you owe me.” Moriarty looked him over again and grinned, “Maybe I’ll let you sleep first, though…. Maybe.” and he walked  off and went upstairs.

“Fuck my life…” Sebastian muttered and went down to take care of Sensible for the night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh... is 16 going on 17 an improvement?

After taking care of Sensible for the night–and he did seem to understand enough to be grateful for his treatment–Sebastian went up to the bedroom.  _I have no idea how I’m going to turn him down… do I want to: no.  Should i: yes._ Sebastian tried to connect the… the child he was dealing with–even if he wasn’t very childlike– with his boss and it was boggling. _He was on the street, or in a house, and working as a prostitute at 14?  How do you get from there to… Moriarty?_   He was so deep in thought that he didn’t notice at first that Moriarty was curled up in bed oddly.

“Sir?  I took care of…Sir?” Sebastian walked over carefully–too many people lashed out if they were startled– and tried again, “Sir?  Mister Moriarty?... Jim?”

Moriarty very slowly and stiffly uncurled and looked around in a dazed sort of way. “Where?”

 _Uh-Oh…_ “Safe house outside of London, sir?  You… people tried to capture you and… you came back to get me…”

“I…” he looked around very shakily. “You… why didn’t you help me?”

Sebastian came over and sat on the bed and started trying to check him for injuries–he flinched. “Do you remember me? Do you know how old you are?”

“What? I’m…” he hesitated. “I was… you were…” he stared at him for a long time, “Tiger?  I didn’t meet you until… later?”

“You met me… well you hired me after I got kicked out of the military; I didn’t meet you in person until after that.” Sebastian kept carefully running his hands down the man–it seemed to help Moriarty, but it was NOT helping Sebastian: his libido wasn’t getting the news to stand down.

“I… was fourteen… at Mister Charlie’s… and then I was here…well someplace… with you…” Moriarty’s breathing seemed to have evened out. “And then… I came upstairs? And… then I was sixteen or seventeen, and I was dying…”

 _Dying?!_ “Well, you didn’t die… you’re here, you’re… safe-ish?”

Moriarty giggled and trailed off into a sort of hiccup. “Well you… I guess you must be honest…” he snickered sort of oddly, “safe ish.”

“I’ve only known you for a few years…” Sebastian took a deep breath, “I’ve wanted to end up in your bed for at least half of that time and… the one time I made a pass at you, you threatened me and went back to work–I figured I was lucky you didn’t kill me. Just recently a mission went oddly–not badly as far as I knew, just oddly– but you can get lethally upset about stuff like that and I went to find you and–”

“You said… I was stupid enough to throw you away…” Moriarty was slowly losing the tension in his body.

Sebastian cautiously corrected, “I said you have a crazy bad temper, not that you were stupid–you’re brilliant.”

Moriarty nodded at him to continue, so he did: “So just a couple days ago I found you in your favorite house, unconscious and… when you woke up you thought you were fourteen and… we’ve been trying to go from there.  The house got raided, and you figured out–”

“Porlock, whoever that is…but not Holmes? Antarctica?” Moriarty sat up a bit more and took a few shaky breaths.

Sebastian nodded, “and not Love, who I guess is an ally of Holmes–I thought it was Holmes, but you know… I get the impression he wouldn’t be this… sloppy? But there was someone else named Stach… Stachis? That you said sounded like maybe he was just a resource.”

Sebastian chewed on his lip thoughtfully, “Just now…You said I wouldn’t help you?”

“I got… confused.” He swallowed and looked down at himself. “I remembered you being my… guard? But I remembered the men beating me and I was bleeding… and I couldn’t remember why you weren’t there? And then I woke up here and… I wasn’t sure what was real.”

“If it happened when you were sixteen or seventeen… I didn’t know you yet by a couple decades at least…” Sebastian felt guilty, like somehow he should have been there. “Is… is there anyone I can… I can go shoot? I’m good at that…”

“What… year is it?”

Sebastian told him and when he flinched helped him up and into the bathroom where he spent a very long time staring at the mirror. “God… its still so strange… I’m OLD… and… I should be bruised to hell, but I’m not…”

“How about a shower and a cup of tea–if that won’t keep you up–, and… sleep.” Sebastian watched him nod slowly and helped him get undressed.   He still seemed uncomfortable being nude in the shower with him, but instead of tensely fearful or resigned he was… distant.

“You… why wouldn’t you have sex with me… I mean… you… wanted to…” he asked cautiously after Sebastian brought him a small cup of tea and got settled down with him.

“I wanted to, and I want to, and it’s REALLY hard–pun intended–to keep my hands to myself…” Sebastian sighed, “But you aren’t well.  I mean, you thought you were fourteen–I’m not sure what age you think you are now–and a kid… well I mean you don’t look any different, but my mind keeps running up against the words ‘fourteen years old’ and freezing up.”

“I’m at least seventeen now–that’s legal isn’t it?”

“Yeah, and it’s… easier… but…” Sebastian tried to think about it and finally shrugged, “You’re going to get your memory back–I hope this is just the start, you know?” Moriarty nodded and Sebastian continued, “Right now? Can you really make a decision like that? You’ve been drugged… and when you finally wake up as my boss Moriarty? Are you going to be furious that I took advantage?”  He waved a hand and Moriarty flinched.

“That.” He nodded firmly, “is a good example of you not being yourself right now: you never flinched from me waving my hands before, ever.”

“I… just woke up from dying in a back alley… after a bunch of guys your size beat me…and I’ve been hit a lot.”

“I can’t picture anyone hitting you and living, frankly.”

Moriarty grinned, “That’s… nice to hear.”

“You… don’t seem as inclined to jump me, now that you bring that up…”

“Sex… was most of what I had… then.”

“See? That’s all the more reason not to…” Sebastian sighed, “I’m going to take a cold shower and… try to reach a buddy of mine to get me some clothes.”

“…the… tiger pajamas were cute… did I get them for you?”

“I suppose you did? I found them in the spare room and they were my size.”

“Heh.” He smiled a bit, “I must have wanted you soooo bad.”

“You never gave me any indication of it.”

“Oh!  Hey, you need to take care of your head injury, don’t you?”

“I patched it up already.” Sebastian smiled at the offer–Moriarty had never expressed any concern over injuries other than ‘don’t bleed on the suit.’

“Get the first aid kit and I’ll look you over…”

Sebastian started to follow orders reflexively and then paused. “Do you have any clue how?”

“I used to stitch up the other kids at Mister Charlie’s… and… myself.” He got up carefully–holding himself as if he was injured– and went into the bathroom.

“Jesus…” Sebastian had wondered what kind of background led to the ‘Napoleon of Crime’ but he’d never pictured this.

…

Jim–he insisted that Sebastian call him Jim– had done an expert job of cleaning and actually stitching the scalp wound. He commended Sebastian on sitting through it and idly remarked about how much of a fuss ‘the kids’ made about stuff like this.

“well, kids… normally do?”

“I never did–I don’t remember ever making a fuss.”

Sebastian couldn’t help but smile, “Your idea of a fuss was to have someone taken out and shot because they bled on your Westwood.”

“My what?”

“One of your favorite suits.”

“Oh… well you’re all patched up–you got a heck of a goose egg so you probably should put ice on it– and… honestly you should sleep in here so I can keep an eye on you.”

“I had been sleeping with you to keep an eye on you… I guess we can take turns?” Sebastian grinned.

Much to his surprise Jim laughed and shot him a hungry flirtatious look, “Maybe?  But I totally prefer to top.”

After Sebastian finished coughing he managed to say, “Yeah I got that impression from your constant comments about tying me to the bed.”

“I… I’d rather not… not tonight…”

“As much as I’d LOVE to; I’m the one that’s been trying to say no… and… right after you got a chunk of memory back probably isn’t a good time–good news, but not a good time.”

“It’s…more that I can’t quite believe I’m… not hurt right now.  It feels like just a few minutes ago I was….” He shook his head and double checked the weapons in reach. “You go make arrangements… and... just… talk to me before you get close.”

“I’m used to that idea: a lot of ex-military tend to come awake fast and ask questions later.”

…

Fourteen year old Jim had slept curled away from him and then in his sleep curled up into him and shivered.  Seventeen year old Jim slept stiffly as though… _as though he’d just been beaten half to death_ … and whimpered quietly in his sleep.  He got up in the middle of the night and slipped out of the room and then came back after about an hour–Sebastian pretended he hadn’t noticed.

Sebastian was awake before Moriarty–Jim– and went down to get his tiger pajamas out of the dryer and set up tea; as usual he had to hunt to find coffee supplies.  There was nothing fresh in the house, but he’d asked for a few groceries in addition to his grab and go bag. 

Jim came down before his friend arrived, and handed him a wad of cash. “I found at least one of the stashes of money–I also found a safe but I don’t know the combination.”

Sebastian nodded, “Good; thank you, sir. My friend should be delivering some groceries–we have a lot of shelf-stable stuff but nothing fresh– and my bag, so I can at least repay them for the groceries and give them something by way of thanks.  They don’t know you’re here, I just told them some of the cops got too close to me and I was ducking.”

“Good call.” Jim nodded and when he got the delivery Jim stayed out of sight.

Once everything was checked for problems and put away, Sebastian made a better breakfast.

“I don’t understand,” Jim said over a mouthful of eggs, “How did I get here? How did I make it to the point that I’m being… hunted by MI6? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“I only know what happened after I met you, and… not all of that.” Sebastian sipped at his after breakfast coffee–like most military men he ate faster than civilians, although Jim seemed to eat faster as a kid than he had as an adult.

“I... found Sherlock? But for some reason I wanted to kill him?” Jim sounded really puzzled, “and his BROTHER is Mycroft Holmes, who I call the Iceman…”

Sebastian went over it as best as he could; it was interrupted frequently by Moriarty–Jim– exclaiming about how things didn’t make sense, or how idiotic something was.

“Sir, I can only assume I don’t know everything…”

“Unless you ‘don’t know’ some bloody huge twists in this story I think my older self got dropped on his head too much!” Jim snorted. “That’s… that’s ridiculous!  Just what was on the news is crazy enough!”

“Mine is not to reason why, mine is but to do or die,” Sebastian quoted. “I couldn’t begin to tell you WHY you ever did anything–except the most obvious stuff.”

He sat silently and chewed on a nail idly for a while, “Are you sure Sherlock is dead?”

“Well… I mean I didn’t check it myself…”

“Supposedly I’m dead–the news says so.”

“Okay?”

“Maybe he’s not dead either?”

“Well… Watson sure thinks he is.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he sighed, “I don’t remember enough to find him.”

“Wait… why would you want to find Sherlock?”

“Someone knows what’s going on, and it’s not me… I thought maybe…” Jim shrugged, “I thought he could figure it out–at least maybe the  drugs and… what was going on…”

“I dunno how involved he is in his brother’s business–I mean his brother is all up in HIS, but–”

Jim sat up, “right!  Antarctica wasn’t told… but he works with Porlock, right?”

“Uh… I guess?”

“I need Mycroft Holmes then!”

Sebastian dragged a hand down his face, “You want what now?”

“You need to kidnap Mycroft Holmes.”

“Sir… Mister Moriarty…” Sebastian tried to reason with him,  “the man is surrounded by security eight deep!”

“So have Sensible call him and get him into a trap.”

“I think he’ll know…”

“Why? I’m dead, his brother is dead… probably not but anyway,” Jim was gesturing with a butter knife, “Have him call and say he was on the mission for Porlock and it went badly–that’s true– and have him call and ask what he is supposed to do… now that he got away from a couple of goons that worked for Moriarty–play up the stranded and no shoes thing.”

Jim grinned, and it didn’t look like Moriarty, it looked like a kid, “Betcha this Iceman comes right out to get him because if it’s one of his own people going behind his back?  That’s a problem.”

“That… might work? We can take him to another location…”

“If he does it right, we either let him go or hire him… if not you shoot him.”

“And you want Mycroft… alive? I mean I can shoot Mycroft if he leaves his office...”

“I need him alive, Sebastian, because he might be able to find out what happened to me.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Mycroft Holmes

Sebastian was quiet for a while, taking care of the dishes, getting dressed again- and it was a relief to have proper clothes.

"Sir?"

Jim looked up, "you sound like you’re about to say something I won’t like..."

He smiled, "probably..."

"Go on then..."

"Sir I think...I think you may be wrong..." he added hurriedly, "because you don’t have all the information you need.”

Moriarty looked angry, but took several breaths and visibly counted backwards from ten.  "Ok...you...you think I’m missing something?"

"Mycroft Holmes is...well you always said Sherlock was almost as clever as you are...and Mycroft is older....and  handles international intelligence at a pretty high level... I think you need to stay away from him until you get more of your memories and experience back."

Sebastian considered, "he knows you right now better than you know him."

It looked like that got through to him because he started scrubbing at his eyes with that headachy look that Sebastian was beginning to think was his version of crying in frustration

"I just...it’s so much, and so strange..."

"Try coming up with a plan that...maybe we do need Mycroft to handle his own people, like this Porlock...but...find a way to handle it where he can’t get his hands on you again."

Jim stood up. "I need to think...and...Can you get me back into the computer? You said Sherlock and John had blogs?"

Sebastian sighed with relief and got him online...and went down to take care of Sensible.

"You may actually walk out of this..." Sebastian told him. "Assuming you keep being sensible..." he looked him over, “I can walk you up to a shower and get you some clean clothes...don’t make me shoot you?"

Sensible very sensibly let himself be stripped, blindfolded, and taken into the bathroom. Sebastian gave him a set of workout gear to wear and put him back downstairs.

"I...uh...thank you?" Sensible said as Sebastian set him up with his lunch.

Sebastian nodded and went back upstairs.

When he got back upstairs Jim called him over and explained the new idea...

It was still too much Holmes for Sebastian’s tastes, but he had to agree that it was not going to put Moriarty into danger...

...

Sensible was waiting in the middle of a nice public area in London with too many lines of sight for snipers. He’d called in as directed–and it took bloody forever to get through to Holmes–and now it was all waiting.

Mycroft Holmes showed up, after a security team had verified that  Sensible had nothing more dangerous than  the ear piece and a phone on him–no bomb vest.

“Mister Holmes,” Sensible took a deep breath and introduced himself–Sebastian hadn’t known his name was Tommy– “I was sent on an assignment with a lot of other people to retrieve Mister Jim Moriarty.”

“He’s rather dead,” Holmes answered drily while standing in the one spot that didn’t have a clear line of sight from most of the sniper positions–Sebastian could see him perfectly, but most snipers wouldn’t setup quite so far away.

“Shall… I switch over to the ear piece and let you talk to them directly? Or indirectly…”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, “I rather assumed that was the point.”

Sensible nodded and Sebastian took over.

“Good day, Mister Holmes,” Sebastian waited for Sensible to relay it and watched the puzzled expression on Mycroft’s face with some interest.

“Is it? And who is this, because you most certainly are not Jim Moriarty… you aren’t even pretending to be.”

“No, I am not,” Sebastian lined up the sights carefully. “I’m one of his people and his best sniper.”

“Why… wouldn’t he just speak directly, if you intend to pretend he’s alive?”

“Because someone named Porlock certainly thinks he’s alive–that’s why Sensible there was in the group of SIS people raiding one of his houses looking for him.”

Mycroft definitely reacted to the name Porlock, and looked around thoughtfully. “You claim that Porlock sent a team of people to find a dead man?  Assuming I believed any of this, why are you speaking to me?”

“First of all, a simple comment, Mister Holmes,” Sebastian flashed the laser sight in the center of his forehead for just long enough for his security team to panic. “I could have killed you where you stand–I have no intention of doing so as long as everyone is as sensible as Sensible Tommy there.”

Sebastian had to give the Iceman credit–and it was no wonder he got the nickname– because he merely glanced at his guards’ reactions and went on as though he was at tea.

“Impressive range: my men assured me that line of sight was impossible.”

“I’m the best.”  Sebastian continued calmly, counting down the time until it was likely the SIS showed up. “We’ll have a much friendlier chat if none of your people try to find me, though.  In any event, since I have proven that your position isn’t helping you, I suggest you have your men step out of hearing range so we can have a private chat.”

Sebastian watched as Mycroft considered briefly–very briefly– and ordered his men out to the further perimeter.  He did give them orders to NOT try to find the sniper, but Sebastian wasn’t counting on it.

“Very well,” Mycroft nodded and walked forward to Sensible, “A private discussion, then: you have my attention.”

Sensible muttered, “I didn’t sign up for this.” Mycroft looked amused, but waited.

Sebastian took a deep breath–this was the part he really didn’t like, but it was Jim’s call to make. “Mister Moriarty survived the roof only to be troubled by Porlock… and he wants to talk to you about it.” Sebastian gritted his teeth, “I am NOT thrilled with this, but having Mister Moriarty work through me, to Sensible there, to you, does ensure that he is out of reach.”

Mycroft frowned, “There was a suspicious explosion and fire at one of Moriarty’s holdings…”

“The Conduit Street one, yes,” Sebastian  agreed, “that’s where we picked up Sensible–I assume you’ll get the whole story out of him once we’re done so I won’t bother concealing much… what he didn’t know is that Porlock’s men were apparently successful in drugging Moriarty at some point: they expected him to be helpless.”

Sensible was nodding and quietly said, “true: we were told he would be   unconscious, or sick.”

“Why would” Mycroft started but Sebastian was already trying to deal with Jim damn near shouting in his ear.

“I’m going to be relaying for Mister Moriarty–switching now:” Sebastian sighed and then let Jim take over.

“So you’re Sherlock’s big brother?” Sebastian tried to get the tone of Jim’s voice into it, and hearing it come from Sensible two people removed was a bit odd.

“… Yes?” Mycroft was frowning.

“Apparently Porlock used some drug–possibly from someone names Stachis– on me, Mister Holmes… it has had the terribly interesting side effect of erasing a great deal of my recent memory…”

Sensible startled, but Mycroft Holmes froze… “Stachys? You… how much recent memory?”

“Quite a bit,” Jim said it casually and Sebastian tried to relay it as he said it, “But luckily I AM brilliant so I’m managing.  I decided that since Porlock apparently went behind your back–oh, and didn’t tell Love, either as they are too likely to tell you– it would be simpler to tell you ALLL about it and let you figure it out.”

“… There was a drug in development that can cause… amnesia, but it wasn’t ready for testing…”

“Well, Iceman, it appears to have been tested: on me and I’m rather annoyed…  My sniper thought you were responsible, until I questioned Sensible there, but seeing that Porlock was going behind your back–and trying to retrieve me for his own reasons–It seems we have a mutual enemy… if not a common goal.”

“You are proposing that I ally myself with a man who killed my brother?”

“I highly doubt that he’s any more dead than I am,” Jim sounded more and more like Moriarty–dismissive and amused alternating with dangerous, “but since I don’t remember why I would possibly have wanted him dead, it’s a bit odd on my side.”

“… That far back…” Mycroft said quietly.

“Oh, and Mycroft? My sniper already told me you had me in interrogation–no I don’t remember it– so yes I am well aware of the issues in any such alliance: that’s why I’m not even remotely nearby.”

“I appreciate the information about Porlock’s activities… even if I were to find out information about the drug he supposedly had used on you, how would I get that information to you?”

“Post a link to a secure online file on Molly Hooper’s blog.  We agree to a key now.”

“And what if I don’t find out anything?”

“That would be a shame,” Jim was using the same tone of mock sympathy he’d heard so often on Moriarty it was eerie. “It would be such a pity if so many important people were to drop dead, truly it would… so sad….”

Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose, “You clearly are Moriarty, and you clearly haven’t lost very much… you are as aggravating as ever.”

“Awww… My sniper was right! You DO know me well!”

“And if there is nothing I CAN find out?”

“Better convince me, then…or else the headlines will mostly read ‘Boom!’ for the next while…”

“I take it I can take… Sensible… here back to get the details?”

“As soon as you give me the key we’ll use for the secure communication? Yes.   He takes the  ear piece out and my sniper detonates it… oh… yes, we’ll also tell you  how to disarm the bombs in all the other sniper sites…your people are currently holding very still in a few of them after stepping on a pressure plate.”

“I already said I believe you,” Mycroft snorted, “You don’t have to keep proving your identity.”

Jim laughed and Sebastian just said, “He’s laughing his ass off, and I am NOT trying to imitate that,” which Sensible relayed.

“No need, I heard it often enough.” Mycroft gave him a complicated key code, “do you have that?”

“If you could repeat it please?” Sebastian asked, “Incidentally Mister Moriarty is now offline.”

Mycroft repeated it. “I assume we will be dealing with each other for a while, what should I call you?”

“Tiger, Mister Holmes… and if any of the ‘gentlemen’ that raided the place survived–other than Sensible– tell them to watch their backs; I have  some rather personal objections to them.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow and nodded, “The disarming instructions?”

Sebastian gave them–they were so simple and uncomplicated that no one had probably thought of them yet. 

Mycroft actually smirked, “ah… I see his sense of humor survived intact… until later, ‘Tiger’.  Come along Mister Davis.”

It took Sebastian a moment to remember that ‘Tommy Davis’ was Sensible’s name: he reminded him to put the earbud and the phone together and get away from them.  The security people–and Sensible– jumped when Sebastian triggered the explosive but Mycroft Holmes never even glanced back, just ushered Sensible into the car and got in.

“He’s a cool one,” Sebastian commented as he got out of the building.

“Yeah?”

“Never even turned a hair–I hope the camera recorded enough for you to see it.”

“I hope so too…” Jim laughed and it didn’t sound much like Moriarty, “that was FUN! I can see why I did things this way before!”  Okay maybe it did sound like Moriarty.

“Signing off sir, see you tomorrow.” Sebastian shook his head and dropped the ear bud into a metal rubbish bin: it wouldn’t detonate but it would melt.

He was several blocks away and beginning to relax when a far too familiar voice called his name.

“Sebastian Moran–formerly Colonel Moran.”

He turned slowly to find a very attractive woman in professional dress holding up a phone set on speaker.

“Mister Holmes….” Sebastian kept his hands in view, “I believe the terms were already made clear…”

“And I would like to speak to you… privately.  Kindly allow my people to place your weapons in the trunk–they will be returned to you when we are concluded.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a discussion in a warehouse

Sebastian found himself rather efficiently and politely searched and then put in the back seat of a car–he thought they put his gear in the trunk but he couldn’t be sure. It was a comfortable looking car, but there was a solid divider between front and back, and no way to open the door from the inside.

 _Well one thing they teach you as a sniper is being patient_ : Sebastian sat and watched the roads go by.

The car pulled into an abandoned warehouse: oddly Sebastian knew this specific warehouse rather well since Moriarty had used it for a few meetings. Holmes was there with a few of his guards–Sensible was there too, with two guards flanking him and looking like he was beginning to wonder if he should have stayed with Moriarty.

“Mister Moran,” Holmes looked at him thoughtfully, “Your military records are… interesting reading.”

“I’m sure.  So you had me brought here for some reason, and it wasn’t to ask about my medals.”

He nodded at Sensible, “This is the same man?”

“Yes, sir?” Sensible looked like he had a million questions–he wasn’t asking though.

Holmes gestured and his guards escorted him off–not roughly, but he was clearly under escort. “We called him Sensible: looks like he might have been better off staying with us…”

“Highly unlikely that he would, and very likely that Moriarty would have killed him.” Holmes said and then nodded at one of the chairs, “I agree that some discussions are better had in private, Mister Moran; please have a seat.”

The chair seemed harmless, so Sebastian sat down: Holmes stood with a hand on the back of the other chair, looking at him.

“I’ve been stared at by Mister Moriarty–you’re not nearly as frightening.” Sebastian said after it seemed that all the man was going to do was look at him.

“I… would expect not.” Mycroft agreed, much to Sebastian’s surprise. “How long have you worked for him?”

“Since not long after I got back to London, although I didn’t meet the man for a while.” Sebastian didn’t see any harm in telling him that.

“That… long? And you’re alive… I’m… surprised.”

“So am I some days.” Sebastian muttered.

Mycroft chuckled at that, and then slowly sat down in the other chair. “I did some very quick research on the likely drug Moriarty was exposed to: it… was not, in fact, fully tested–to be honest it was barely out of the initial phases and should never have been used on a valuable target.”

Sebastian wasn’t certain he followed all of that, but it sounded very bad. “I’m not used to drugs and chemical work, Mister Holmes…”

“He said he lost ‘recent memories’ but that…”  Holmes tapped out a pattern on the handle of his umbrella–it reminded Sebastian eerily of Moriarty–and then stopped. “He would remember me going back several years, as we dealt on business.”

Sebastian stared at him and then, “Several years?  You mean before all this Sherlock stuff?”

“Well before,” Holmes nodded as his hands slowly turned the umbrella in front of him. “I had no idea of his prior associations with my brother, and he had no idea…”

“Who you were related to…” Sebastian could see it, “But you would have need of a disavow-able operative, and the government has money…” Sebastian sat up suddenly, “Wait… did he deal with the others? Porlock and Love and … Stachis?”

“He never dealt with Stachys that I know of, but yes, he dealt with Porlock–he may have done with Love.”

Mycroft looked at him levelly, “He didn’t sound as though he had lost all of his memory, but as you were relaying it twice it was difficult… however I did manage to speak with Agent Davis, and he confirmed dealing with Moriarty face to face.”  Holmes tilted his head, “I am rather… perplexed, and I do not like being perplexed.”

“Why should I tell you anything?”

“I can tell you why it was so very surprising to see you–I do know several things about Moriarty’s past that you do not.”

“That’s nice, but I’m loyal to–”

“I have no question of that–it’s obvious.” Holmes waved a hand, “Moriarty’s death is actually… quite inconvenient on several levels–not least of which was the fail-safes he had in place…”

“Well I was the primary sniper on Watson–he may have had others, but I’m not inclined to shoot the man if I don’t have to…”

“Sadly his threats against my brother’s friends are the least of my concerns.”

“Oh?”

“He has fail-safes that will act against political and economic targets if he doesn’t call them off…”

“Oh… I… wouldn’t know.” Sebastian shrugged, “Seriously I have no idea.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, but you may recall Moriarty commented about mutual goals?”

“Mutual enemies,” Sebastian corrected, “if not mutual goals.”

“… You are much more astute than your file led me to believe…”

“I’m smart, yeah… I’m not Moriarty–don’t expect I’m in your league either.”

“Very few people are, Mister Moran.”

At that point the good looking lady walked into view and nodded; Holmes gestured and she came up and handed him a file–Sebastian could smell the printer on it so it was recent. Holmes looked it over quickly.

“The drug they were testing–assuming this is the drug Porlock’s agents used…”  He looked up from the papers, “While it is very likely to be Porlock, how do you know it is?”

“We don’t: I thought it was you, as we said, but Sensible… well Moriarty said he reminded him of a fellow he knew who ‘heard things he shouldn’t’ and … apparently he did.”  Sebastian looked Holmes over, “But it was someone with authority to send that bunch of agents… and honestly once I thought about it, it seemed a bit sloppy for you.”

Holmes smiled very faintly at the last bit and then went back to looking unhappy. “Indeed.  The drug tests were still in early stages, as I said… a great deal of the results on animals are variable, and it has only been tested twice on humans.”

“Fuck.”

Holmes looked a bit sour at the language but continued, “There is no treatment plan at this point, although it is suggested that the usual–adequate hydration and nutrition– would be beneficial… so that brings me back to a common goal: I need those fail-safes shut down.”

Sebastian shrugged and looked around, “I don’t even know what they are, much less how to shut them off… and Moriarty never trusted anyone that I know of with his computer work–only as much as any of us needed to do our jobs and report in.”

“You knew his Conduit Street address.”

“Yes, I went there to try to talk him out of killing me.”

Holmes’ frown deepened, “explain.”

It was an odd relief to have someone to talk to… “When it became obvious that Sherlock had jumped–I couldn’t see him, but I had a target lock on Watson– I packed down and left… narrowly avoided some professional types…”

Holmes nodded slowly, “And so?”

“So I never got the official call off? Protocol says I should stay on target until I do. When I got home I checked the messages and… nothing: no call off and no screaming rants about not following procedure.” Sebastian looked at him thoughtfully, “I figured if he was so angry he wasn’t screaming at me I had…a very short lifespan, but I wasn’t going to die running… I went there to try to talk him out of killing me.”

“But not to try to kill him?”

“Never.”

Holmes sat back, “Can he figure out the passwords and such needed to call off the–“

“Probably not–even assuming he knew to try.”

“He knew how to evade capture and rescue you…” Holmes was watching him with a familiar intensity.

“He _deduced_ how to get out of that house based on what he would have set up if he could, and he rescued me because I was the only one he knew wouldn’t  betray him.” Sebastian shook his head, “And I didn’t mean to give you that much–I was right, getting near you was a bad idea.”

A faint quirk of the lip told him that Holmes had heard the last part and appreciated the compliment. He cleared his throat, “I… would be willing to assist in getting into his computer systems–I am one of the best cryptographers and–”

“I would be willing to go out on a limb here and say he won’t go for that… unless you’re a prisoner, which was his FIRST suggestion…”

For some reason Holmes smirked, “Was it?”

“Yes…?  He… suggested kidnapping you, since Porlock was acting behind your back, you were the lever point.”

“I am not easily gotten to.”

“I mentioned.”

Holmes looked like he had decided something and said, “He’s lost over a decade of memories if he doesn’t remember me…”

Sebastian stared at him–he looked serious. “You’ve known him for HOW long?”

“Nine years and four months at this point since we met in person–we had dealt anonymously somewhat longer.”

Sebastian sat back slowly in the chair, “Maybe you do know him…” he shook his head, “But there isn’t a treatment…for the drug?”

“Nothing on file.  I will be trying to find out if Porlock knew anything that is NOT in the file, but…”  Holmes suddenly looked pensive, “It’s quite possible he wanted to permanently erase Moriarty’s knowledge of any dealings he was having with the man… to keep the rest of us from learning about it–which would be… quite bad.”

“In which case even he wouldn’t have a cure or treatment–wouldn’t want one.” Sebastian wanted to scream, or shoot someone very very badly… He settled for scrubbing at his face and flexing his hands.

“Has he shown any improvement?  And do you know what he does remember?”

“I won’t TELL you what he remembers, other than he says he has no clue about you, and he didn’t remember who I was.” Sebastian damned the fact that Jim was right, they needed the man.  “As to improvement? Yes… without telling you the details he recovered about two or three years and… he says he has memories from further forward in bits and pieces, but it’s hard to make sense of them without context.”

“I see… I will need a means of contacting you, Mister Moran, in the event that I do find out anything, or you decide to permit me access to his computers.”

Sebastian tilted his head– _well, damn, I was being let go?_ – “I admit to being pleasantly surprised…”

“Moriarty… is at best an extremely volatile man, Mister Moran… I wouldn’t be too surprised if you contact me, asking to be rescued.”

Sebastian shook his head, “It will never happen.”

“You could decide to permit me access–”

“Not without Moriarty’s say so, and frankly while I would love to see the two of you actually work together…” Sebastian narrowed his eyes because he saw the faintest hint of pain…

“You didn’t just deal on business: you worked together.”

Holmes expression went completely unreadable. “You are remarkably observant for…”

Sebastian smiled viciously, “Ordinary people? Goldfish?  Before all of this went down, Mister Holmes, I had the privilege of being told ‘well, you aren’t ordinary people’ by Moriarty… I suggest you refrain from underestimating me.”

Holmes stood up and gave him a nod that felt just a bit respectful, “I will not make that mistake again, Mister Moran. You are being allowed to leave and my PA will give you my direct line–very few people have it, so do not permit it to fall into outside hands– I will need yours.”

“I change phones frequently, but there are places I check for messages…”

They exchanged means of getting in touch, and Sebastian memorized several phone numbers. As he was being escorted away, Sebastian made a decision.

“Mister Holmes?”

He stopped, “yes?”

“I’m a gambling man, as you should have seen from my file.” Holmes nodded and Sebastian continued, “I’m willing to exchange one bit of information… in exchange for something from you.”

“Go on…”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about any other fail-safes, but I do know how to call off the snipers on Mrs. Hudson and DI Lestrade… at least the primary ones; if he had any contingencies I wouldn’t know.”

Holmes looked at him thoughtfully, “What would you want in exchange?”

“Honest information about whether Sherlock is alive.  His death… it’s bothering Moriarty, even if he doesn’t act like it: he doesn’t know why he would want him dead.”

Holmes slowly nodded and looked… tired. “My brother is alive and in hiding, Mister Moran.”

Sebastian gave him the call off codes and the method. “As I said I don’t know if–”

“The other two have already been apprehended, Mister Moran–those were my very professional people you narrowly avoided: John Watson’s sniper was the only one unaccounted for.”

_Then why did he tell me?_

Holmes looked him over, “It truly is a miracle you’re alive, much less in such a close relationship with the man, Mister Moran… I will hand you a piece of intelligence that you may need if his memory continues to come back in pieces…”

“Yes?”

“You resemble very closely an agent that was infiltrated into his trust many years ago…who failed to assassinate him.”

Sebastian’s eyes went wide and he actually had to put his hand onto something for support. “What?”

“I believe–” he sighed faintly, “No, I will be honest: I know that they were lovers…”

Sebastian stared at him–with what he’d found out about his so-called childhood? His trust issues? “Good God…”

Holmes nodded slowly, “Unquestionably why he kept you somewhat at a remove, Mister Moran.  That was… not very many years ago… not long before you were hired.”

“Thank you for telling me.” Sebastian ran through analysis as fast as he could–it was slow compared to Moriarty, but he wasn’t uninformed of politics and spy-craft: Holmes waited politely. “You gave the order?”

“Not a goldfish indeed,” Holmes said quietly and then continued in a normal tone, “No, but I knew about the agent and didn’t tell him–he never brought it up directly, but I rather expect that was the source of his… games… with my brother.”

“Does your brother know that?”

“No.”

“Secrets like that tend to be explosive, Mister Holmes; I suggest you tell him.”

“A slightly lesser concern at the moment than those fail-safes.”

“I’ll discuss it with him–that’s all I can do.”

“No; you could do a great deal more, but you won’t.  You remind me of Doctor Watson, Mister Moran–remarkably loyal for your situation.”

Sebastian nodded slowly and was escorted back to the same luxury prisoner transport car… and eventually put back with all his things more or less where he was picked up. He checked everything for bugs and tracers–nothing he could find, which meant nothing that could broadcast at any range– and began the tedious process of heading to the meeting location.

_I am NOT looking forward to telling Jim any of this._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude: a discussion in France

By the time Sebastian made it to the home that Moriarty maintained in France he was upright and moving by force of will.  He leaned on the buzzer and gave the agreed on code and when Moriarty opened the door he staggered in and fell down on the sofa.

“Sebastian? Are… you alright?”  He would later recall that Jim’s voice sounded a bit different.

“Exhausted–got picked up by Holmes, but let go… had to take extraordinary precautions to prevent being followed… so no sleep.” Sebastian mumbled into a cushion.

“But you weren’t followed?”

Sebastian managed to say, “No,” and then he had a vague awareness of someone getting his shoes off of him and a blanket…

…

Sebastian woke up fast when someone moved near him: they jumped back when he jerked awake and he spent several seconds getting his heart rate back down.

“Good… morning… sir, sorry…”  Sebastian scrubbed at his face. “I tend to wake up hard if… if I had a rough day.”

“I made you coffee, since I think you like it?”  Jim’s voice was… smoother?

Sebastian focused on the man standing there looking thoughtfully at him, holding a cup of coffee.  _Posture different… he ’thinks’ I like coffee…voice different…_ “You… remembered more? And yes, Coffee is the blessed nectar of the Gods that grants awakeness.”

Jim smiled a bit, “I think that’s either tea or chocolate.”

“Tea is lovely but not as good on the wakey-wakey bit.”

“So… does your English improve as you get more sleep?”

“No, my English improves when I get more bacon, sausages, or eggs in a pinch…”

He chuckled, “I didn’t want to start anything until you were up.”

“You can cook?”

“I could always cook breakfast,” He shrugged, “but… I’m better at it now.”

“How… how much did you get back?” Sebastian asked as he tried to stretch the crackles out of his back.

“I’m… about twenty.”

“That shows good potential for getting your memory back then… uh… I have good news and bad news about that from Mycroft Holmes.”

Jim nodded and they worked together to put breakfast on.

“It’s… very odd the way this works,” Jim said quietly. “It’s like I’m time traveling and I don’t remember it when I go back… but when I wake up again here it’s so confused… why weren’t you there? Why didn’t I remember something I learned the last time I came forward…”

“I’m… more and more impressed by how well you’re holding it together, actually.” Sebastian admitted. “It’s hard for me to cope with, but… nothing like what you’re dealing with.”

Jim didn’t say anything else until they were almost done with breakfast. “The last two times I’ve woken up here–now–it’s been after something very painful… I wonder if that’s part of it.”

“… That… could be? I mean, I know from my military counselor that traumatic events tend to stand out in our brains.” Sebastian hesitated, “I was told about a traumatic event–I mean I assume it was– that happened after you met Mycroft Holmes… and… it may explain how you dealt with me…”

“Do you think he was telling the truth?”

Sebastian considered, “He… traded information to tell me that yes, Sherlock was alive, and he gave me the information about… about the event because it’s pretty critical to safety… so… yeah? I believe he was being truthful–not sure he was being honest.”

“Oh that’s half the game…” Jim nodded. “What did HE want?  He must have wanted something to pick you up and let you go…”

“He said you have Fail-safes… things that will be major problems if you don’t call them off.  He was ‘offering’,” Sebastian made air quotes, “to try to figure out your computer passwords and all…”

Jim snorted, “Because he desperately wants them.”

“Right.  I… do get the impression whatever he thinks you set up is very bad, but… Oh, you dealt with him, and Porlock, and maybe Love before: he was suggesting that Porlock might have wanted to make sure you didn’t remember something he did with you–something he didn’t want Mycroft to know about.”

“That… would make sense…”

“It didn’t really to me,” Sebastian admitted, “I mean, the easiest way to silence someone is to kill them”

Jim looked at him and it wasn’t the shark like look, or the confused look, that Sebastian was getting used to–he looked tired. “You… could have hurt me badly, or controlled me easily, when I was fourteen.”

“…well… I mean… I could…? But I wouldn’t.”

“You… wouldn’t.” he stirred his tea for a moment and then sighed and looked up, “Tiger, how convenient would it be for this Porlock–or Holmes, or any of them– to have me unable to remember anything? Pretend to be my friend… or just bully me–fourteen year old me– into doing what they wanted?  I assume that if I showed up and gave someone orders, like you, that they wouldn’t question it.”

Sebastian stared at him, “Oh… I’m an idiot… you wouldn’t know where to go, or how to get away… or what was the truth…”

“Eventually they could get hold of everything I built… everything… I paid for…” Jim’s expression hardened, “I would rather die than let someone control me.”

Sebastian wasn’t sure if twenty year old Jim wanted him to touch him, but he reached out slowly and put his hand over Jim’s hand, giving him plenty of time to say anything–he didn’t, just flinched slightly and then relaxed.

“Look, uh… at the risk of sounding like a chick flick or something… do… you want to sit on the sofa?”

Jim laughed, “Tiger? Are you flirting?”

“Probably?  Maybe I think you just… I… I have some really bad nasty news and I almost don’t want to tell you because I don’t want to see you hurt… and it will hurt.”

Jim stood up–without letting go of his hand– and pulled him over to the sofa.  He pushed him into it and sat on Sebastian’s lap, facing him. “Would you let me tie you to the bed? Seriously?”

“Well… you need to hear what I have to tell you before you …” Sebastian looked down at his traitorous dick, “I think you can kind of tell my interest…”

Jim laughed and put his arms to rest on Sebastian’s shoulders, “I hate this.” He said rather incongruously, “I wake up in this year and know I’ll be going back… and when I go back I won’t remember any of it…”

“Yeah…” Sebastian pulled him in close, “I wish… I wish I could have protected you…I wish I could at least kill some of the bastards…”

They stayed there for a while, until finally Jim pushed himself off to the side and said, “might as well get it over with: what’s so awful?”

“Holmes said he knew you in person for a bit over nine years–longer than that dealing business but not meeting.”

“What?”

“He said he didn’t know about you being the kid who killed that Powers kid, and you probably didn’t know his brother was Sherlock…”

“Oh… oh hell… yeah… I can see that…”

“… I get the impression you two were friends, once, or… well not just business, but not lovers… and… he said that not long before you met me?  A guy you were involved with who looks–looked– a lot like me tried to kill you.”

“What?  Did I go for him because he reminded me of you? No, wait that doesn’t work…” Jim rubbed his head, “the whole time travel side of this gets me mixed up… I wouldn’t have known you…”

“No… Holmes said he was amazed you didn’t kill me–I guess I must look a lot like him… and… he was a spy…  he was deliberately infiltrated into your business–I don’t know if he tried to get close to you or just took the opportunity…” Sebastian grabbed Jim’s hand, “And now I know why you threatened me when I tried to make a pass at you, and why…”

“Why I had Tiger striped pajamas in your size…” Jim said quietly, “but we never did anything?  How… how close did he get?”

“I don’t know… but… Holmes apparently knew about the spy, and didn’t tell you.  I asked if he gave the kill order and he said no, he didn’t.”

When Jim looked up he was pulling his business face on. “And I’m going to go back… and I won’t remember…”

“You won’t remember because… it’s just memories–all of this already happened.”

“That’s not how it feels.”

“Can I SHOOT someone? Please?” Sebastian felt like he was being torn into and he couldn’t DO anything about it.

“If we knew who Porlock was…”

“Holmes said you dealt with him on business… so if your memory keeps coming back?”

“There… he SAYS there isn’t a treatment?”

“He said as far as any records he had… the drug hadn’t been tested.” Sebastian sighed, “Two human tests only–I do NOT want to know– and nowhere near ready to be used on…. On a valuable target.”

Jim nodded, “But what’s he got to lose? If I have information he has to shut up… at the best he has an amnesiac he can control, at the worst it doesn’t work and he dumps the body.”

Sebastian put his head back on the sofa… it was all a matter of time and recovery. “I know he’s probably dead by now, before I ever met you, but… I’m kind of taking it personally that he looked like me…”

“I’m kind of pissed off that I apparently missed out on a lot because… because I couldn’t trust you.”

Eventually Jim was sitting next to him with his head resting on Sebastian’s shoulder. “… I really don’t want to go back.”

Sebastian put an arm around him, “I want you to recover… I… I wish I could help you recover without… all this.”

They stayed there until Sebastian’s stomach reminded them they needed to eat.  After lunch–or whatever it was– Jim had him give a proper debrief as best as he could, going over what was said in order.

“Holmes had his PA waiting, and when he identified the ‘impossible shot’ she would have gotten into position…” Jim smiled faintly, “must have impressed him, though.”

Sebastian smirked, “it was a damn fine shot I COULD have taken…”

“And he thinks… I went after Sherlock because he… didn’t tell me about the spy?”

“He said he thought that was at least part of it… from my own view?”  Jim nodded, “you lost a bunch of money on some of those jobs, but… you looked like you thought it was fun, and maybe… I don’t know why you started it, but I think playing against someone who could challenge you was a kick?”

“Probably was…”

“I… I was never filled in on much–and now I know why– but…I get the impression looking back on it that you probably had a lot of mixed feelings about it.  You were… doing stuff that was kind of erratic… usually that’s just you being brilliant and the rest of us trying to keep up, but…”

“I expect I’ll remember, Tiger… its… just going to hurt.”

Hurt… “You said the last two times you woke up it was right after something… that hurt?”

“I think I woke up the first time after a client almost killed me… the second time…”

“You said you were dying… a bunch of guys beat you… and you moved like you were hurt.”

He nodded, “And then this time.”

“Do… you want to tell me?”

“I got stabbed.” Jim peeled off his shirt and touched a scar–old and faded but way too close to some very bad places to get stabbed. “I woke up and then… it’s all healed and old…”

“I noticed the scar but I didn’t know how deep it went…”

“Deep enough…” Jim shook his head, “Bedtime.  Its bedtime.”

Sebastian was about to argue that it really wasn’t, but if Jim wanted to go to bed and sleep he figured he should let him. “Will you be okay sharing a bed again?”

“Yeah,” Jim chuckled, “nothing else… not right now.”

“I’m of two minds about that,” Sebastian smiled and waved at his crotch.

“Damn I want to see you in ropes, Tiger, but…you’re right, not until things… stabilize.”

Sebastian curled up around him and tried to sleep.

…

He woke up to Jim gasping for air and clawing at the bed, and at Sebastian.  He wouldn’t tell Sebastian what happened, just sat huddled with coffee–coffee because it was faster– in a blanket with Sebastian holding him.  He didn’t say anything for a long time.

Finally, “I really hate coffee.” He’d drunk it all, though.

“What can I get you?”

“Hot chocolate, if… we have any…” he looked up a bit, “we’re in France?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t actually... go anywhere?”

“No… we went to bed and… you woke up.”

Sebastian didn’t want to ask but Jim told him anyway, “I’m… close to twenty six, I think… it’s been a busy few years…”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: note updated tags

Sebastian held him in his blanket–he kept shivering and quietly gasping.

“You know… I don’t know how old you actually are?”

“Twenty six, maybe… I told you…”

“Sorry… I meant… how old you are in this year.”

“Oh... uh… thirty five? Thirty six?”  I…” he trailed off and then, “I can’t do it… I can’t, Tiger… I can’t go back… I just can’t.”

“Jim… it’s all old history… it’s… you aren’t going back, you just remember…”

“It FEELS like going back!” Jim screamed at him and then started coughing violently and gasping…

 _That… sounded familiar…_ Sebastian looked at him, grey faced and huddled in blankets and… he was fighting to breathe…

“Were… did someone waterboard you?” Sebastian could barely picture it.

“Nothing… that much finesse, Tiger… mostly tried to drown me–or not quite drown me– the old fashioned way…” he curled into Sebastian and the blanket.  “I can’t… I just can’t.  I can’t go back…”

“If there is even one of those bastards left alive, I will bring you their skins for a rug!” Sebastian snarled and held onto him, “But you made it… you’re HERE… you survived everything they did, and you came out on top…”

Jim barely said anything else, and eventually Sebastian got him a tranquilizer–and a few anti cough medications because he kept coughing like his lungs hurt– and tucked him into bed again.  He would gasp for air, and cough… and he shivered and clung to Sebastian.

By morning he actually felt feverish…

“There has to be someone we can call, a doctor… someone…”

“I don’t know,” Jim rasped–his throat was raw–“even if I did… I don’t dare, and they wouldn’t know what to do with the amnesia drug…” he shivered and Sebastian had to help him hold his tea.

 When the level of the tea was down enough to not splash out of his cup, Sebastian  suggested, “I can call Mycroft?”

“…Mycroft…?”  Jim stared at him.  “Mycroft?  Michael?” he coughed and held out a shaky hand, “Let me see that video, Tiger… let me see Mycroft?”

Sebastian got him the video from when he was talking to Sensible… he stared at it. “It… could be?  Michael is… he has more hair…” he shivered again, “he… he lived?”

“I don’t understand?” Sebastian made up his mind, “I know it’s not the safest thing to do, but… he’s the only lead we have…”

“Call him… if it’s Michael… if he survived… he … he might help…”

Sebastian hesitated before he called, “He… knew you had a spy…”

“I only just met him–if it is him, Tiger, and–” he had another coughing fit.

Sebastian called–he didn’t want to but what choice did he have?

“Mycroft Holmes.” the man answered after two rings.

“Mister Holmes? Sebastian Moran…”  He paused and looked worriedly at Jim, who was watching him with feverish looking eyes.

“Not calling for a rescue…” he said quietly, “What has gone wrong?”

“Mister Moriarty… is very ill… but I think–I think it’s psychosomatic…”

Jim coughed and gestured for the phone to be put on speaker–Sebastian did– “Michael?”  Jim asked and shivered, “How’s…” he fought for air and Sebastian poured some more tea from the thermos, “How’s your chess game?”

Sebastian could HEAR Mycroft’s sharp inhalation, “Oh… oh!… that… what have you remembered?”

“I keep getting thrown back into hell, until I wake up with Tiger again… this time I was a prisoner… I honestly didn’t think I would survive this one… I…” he trailed off shivering.

Sebastian pulled the blankets around him, “He says they tried to drown him…and–”

“We were tortured, Colonel Moran,” Mycroft’s voice was steady and calm–on the surface–but there was a faint hesitation before most of his words. “By the time we escaped we both had pneumonia.  James… had it worse, but I had other injuries he did not…  It was a rather close thing…”

“And I’m getting pulled out of it…” Jim’s voice was shaking, “and dropped here in this year… and… then after I have a taste I get thrown back into hell… and I don’t remember!”  He trailed off coughing violently.

Sebastian held him until the spasms stopped, “He says it feels like time travel to him–it always did, even when he first woke up.  He’s twenty six now, but… he’s sick NOW… even if it’s not…”

“Treat it as though it is Pneumonia, Colonel– and PTSD from being a prisoner…” Sebastian heard him shake out a pill, “There is a reason I never permitted him to be water boarded in interrogation…”

Jim lunged forward and tried to grab at the phone. “How?!… how COULD…why not just kill me…?”

“You… You don’t remember… of course not…You very literally forced my hand, James.  There’s no point trying to discuss it now…” Mycroft took a deep breath and continued, “Colonel:  heat, soup, rest.  I am afraid that as it is psychosomatic it will not be affected by most medicine…”

There was a lengthy pause as Jim coughed and muttered feverishly. 

“Colonel?”

“Yes.”

“See if you can find some hot chocolate and add a splash of alcohol to it–he said it was–”

“It was what I would make myself… when I was cold…” Jim wheezed.  “We talked about the foods we were going to eat when we got out… you wanted…gingerbread…”

“Warm gingerbread with brandied cream…” Mycroft’s voice had softened some, “When I finally was out of the hospital I ate enough of it to make myself violently ill… I haven’t been able to have it since, really.”

Sebastian was about to ask something when Mycroft said something–it was in a language Sebastian didn’t know, but sounded like swearing. “I have to attend to something… call me back in three hours?” and then he hung up.

“Right…” Sebastian carefully picked Jim up and took him back into the bedroom. “Heat, hot chocolate, and some booze.”

Sebastian found an electric blanket and turned it on… and made him up what he complained was the “worst hot chocolate I ever tasted,” and finally found someplace that would deliver soup. Once the tranquilizer had taken effect and Jim had dozed off–propped up with pillows to make his breathing easier– Sebastian slipped out of the room to call Mycroft Holmes back.

“Mycroft Holmes.”

“It’s Sebastian–Jim is resting, more or less.”  He glared at the phone as if outrage would transmit, “How… how could you possibly…”

“How could James threaten my brother, when he knew my family is the only thing I care about?” Mycroft answered sharply. “I did things I regret–whether I would do them again or not– but… he did far worse, and to the best of my knowledge he regrets none of it.”

“When I found him he was fourteen!  Fourteen! And living on the street,” Sebastian could barely see straight he was so angry, and frustrated. “Fourteen and unfamiliar with anything that we got used to over time.  Fourteen and he still managed to escape the SIS and rescue me. By the time you dealt with him on the phone, Mister Holmes, he was maybe seventeen.  Seventeen years old, beaten half to death, in a strange world that makes no sense–”

“He… lost how much? He thought he was… fourteen?!” Mycroft stammered slightly, “beaten?”

“He was fourteen, disoriented, and panicked–hiding it incredibly well but he was.” Sebastian hissed into the phone. “Then he was seventeen, maybe–maybe sixteen– and had just been beaten almost to death: he moved as if he hurt.  He was twenty when I got here after you let me go… and now he says he’s twenty six.” Sebastian took a deep breath and tried to calm down–it didn’t work.

“Every time he wakes up from something that was horrifying, that hurt him, and it’s been years… and he keeps trying to make sense of it.  This is TORTURE, Holmes…”

“I assure you I had nothing whatever to do with it!  I am working on proving that Porlock did, in fact, order it…”

“Let me put it this way:  You can find out who is responsible, and hand them over, or I can start shooting anyone who looks like they MIGHT be Porlock…” Sebastian hung up the phone and went back to check on Jim…

He was breathing more easily, but he looked strangely… lax…

There was an empty bottle of tranquilizer pills next to the bed.

…

Sebastian managed everything as best as he could through the language barrier–thank God most of the medical staff had some English.  He watched as the hospital pumped his stomach, and then as Jim got pneumonia for real from aspirating… something.  They had to keep him sedated while they worked on stabilizing him.

He woke up once or twice, completely disoriented and  possibly hallucinating–he called Sebastian Christopher–and Sebastian  was doing things to his back that he wasn’t sure would ever heal by sleeping on chairs, because he couldn’t bring himself to leave the room to sleep. 

He was grateful that Mycroft had helped arrange for Jim to be treated, but he couldn’t help but worry that at any moment agents would come and take them both away. Mycroft had couriered out a complete set of identification: it called Jim ‘James Dougherty’ and the photo on his passport was old, but it also said he was a British citizen working…in an accounting department for the English government… like a certain ‘minor functionary’.  The passport was old–if it was faked it was incredible–and Sebastian suspected this was part of the two of them working together.

Partway through the estimated recovery Jim woke up and tried to kill Sebastian. 

He did far more damage to himself than to anyone else, and they had to sedate him while they dealt with pulled IV lines… He’d snarled something that sounded like Chris… Sebastian managed to get a few minutes to call after that: Mycroft confirmed that the spy had been using the name Christopher.

“Colonel Moran,” Mycroft hesitated, “At this point he has been told that my brother survived.  If it is necessary to protect Sherlock, I will not hesitate to have James removed…” Sebastian heard him say quietly, “regret, but not hesitate.”

“I… understand.”

“We have barely managed to head off some of his fail safes thus far, and failed to stop some… I need to know what else is likely and if any of it can be stopped.”

“I have no idea when it will be, for him, when he wakes up… or if he will be willing to deal with me at all.”

“Understood.  I have to go deal with what I believe may be yet another of his fail safes: good luck.”

When he got back to the room Jim was being held down by an orderly or someone while he spat curses at one of the doctors.

“Back off!” Sebastian snapped and damn near threw the orderly off him.

“He was pulling out his–” the doctor started but Sebastian glared at him.

“Does he NEED them? Right now?”

“He needs hydration and–”

“I’ll make him drink: we’re leaving.”

“You can’t! He needs–”

Sebastian carefully undid Jim’s IV lines from the poles–Jim was staring at him in  that subdued panic  he’d learned to identify, mixed with something like hope…

“You can take the IVs out, Doctor, or I can–either way we’re leaving.”

Sebastian wasn’t certain he honestly could have gotten them out without killing anyone, but when things looked like they weren’t going anywhere Jim solved  the problem… in a shaky voice he asked for the psychiatrist, or the hospital social worker.

“{I was held prisoner in a hospital environment: I have severe PTSD–it’s in my medical file: I need to get out of here now.}” Jim was speaking French but he did it slowly enough that Sebastian could follow and guess at the words he didn’t know.

The man in civilian clothes–not a doctor or a nurse– said something in faster French, with words that Sebastian had never learned, but they didn’t sound threatening.  Jim answered in rapid fluent French and waved at Sebastian.  They went back and forth for a bit–Jim sounding shaken and pleading under a stoic exterior– but finally the man said something  to the doctor that sounded like  Jim was being let out…

They took out his IV lines and Sebastian pulled Jim off the bed and onto his lap in the chair.  “You’re safe: I’m here.”

Jim buried his head in Sebastian’s chest and Sebastian couldn’t honestly tell if it was an act or not.  Sebastian didn’t even bother to try to get him dressed- that would have meant going home to pack anyway, since his clothes had been cut off–  just  took him out in his hospital gown and got him into the car.

Jim didn’t say anything until they were away:  “you… are Sebastian… you really are?”

“Sebastian Moran,” Sebastian nodded as best he could, “Do you want to go back to the place we were staying?”

“No, or only if we have to: Switzerland…” he looked down at his hospital gown, “Okay, maybe we should go back there and get clothes.”

Jim walked into the place like he hadn’t seen it in years–Sebastian supposed that was true.

“Can… Can I get you anything?”

“How did you get that passport?” Jim sounded more curious than upset.

“I called Mycroft when you overdosed–I didn’t know what else to do, since I was pretty sure your real identity would trip international alerts”  he shook his head, “I’ve been playing the clueless husband–partner anyway– and pretending I speak even less French than I do.  He had a courier show up at the hospital with… all that.”

“I didn’t know he still had any of it–I quit after all.”

“I… I really don’t know.  I take it… well you were calling me by… by that bastard's name…”

“Christopher.” Jim walked into his room and closed the door.  Sebastian waited and paced until he came back out –he did hear a shower so he supposed he was alright.

Jim was in one of his usual outfits when he came out, with a neutral expression fixed in place. “We…  I went to France, while you dealt with Mycroft… and got picked up?  But he let you go…”

“Yes and yes.  When I got here you were… you said you were twenty not seventeen… and then you woke up being twenty six… and… you’d just met Mycroft Holmes–Michael.”  Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck, “he said you were both… tortured.”

“Yes, although I lied to the hospital staff–it looked nothing at all like a hospital: not that clean by any stretch of the word.”

“Are you… caught up yet?... sir?”

“Not quite yet.” Jim answered and then looked up with a sad smile, “I almost killed you…”

“Uh…”

“I honestly thought you’d been sent my way as a taunt… why else would such an obvious spy look so much like… like him.  I only kept you around at first to find out who you were reporting to–because I was going to hurt them very very badly.”

“The only person I report to is you…”

“Not Mycroft?”

“No,” Sebastian shook his head. “I called him because I had to take you to the hospital… and like I said your identity has to be hot flagged.”

He sat down on the sofa, “Go get me something hot to drink that didn’t come from a hospital vending machine.” He sounded distracted.

“Yes, sir…”  Sebastian set him up with some proper tea–he knew the tea at the hospital was substandard. It was… it was going to be so HARD to go back to just… working for him.  _Maybe he’ll kill me, I can always hope._

He came back in, “I got you tea–the hospital tea sucked.”

Jim smiled, “Thank you, yes… yes it did.”

Sebastian almost dropped it. “Did you just say thank you? To me?”

“Sit down, Tiger.”  Sebastian looked for a chair and Jim shook his head, “here,” and patted the sofa next to him.

Sebastian sat down carefully. “I… honestly didn’t know what else to do… I had to take you in…”

“I don’t know if it was the right call, Tiger, but it wasn’t a bad one.” Jim sighed and sipped his tea. “So what’s going on?  It’s so hard to keep track of when I am…”

Sebastian went over everything from the time he had been hired–he was getting practiced by this point so he went over the highlights and waited for questions.

“You… came to Conduit Street because you thought I was more upset than usual…” Jim had long ago finished his tea, “and you were hoping to talk me down…”

“Hoping to… but damned if I was going to die running,” Sebastian nodded, “I… it was like what I did later: I figured I was a dead man for ordering you– fourteen year old you– around and taking the knife out of your hands… but…”

“It was a good call, that one.” Jim said quietly, “I was confused, and…I probably would have gotten myself killed if I hadn’t gotten picked up by Porlock.”  He looked over at Sebastian, “His name is Sir Edwin and he’s the current head of MI6 unless something changed…”

Sebastian grabbed hold of that– _a name_! “Ok, can I SHOOT him?”

Jim patted his hand, “Not immediately, Tiger–I want answers first.”

“Oh… right… uh… this entire experience is full of people I can’t shoot…”

Jim laughed at that– laughed like it was delightful and funny, not like he was going to show you your liver–“Poor frustrated Tiger… most of the people I’ve been talking about have been dead and gone for years… “

“Seriously, just POINT me at someone to shoot…” Sebastian growled, “I AM frustrated!”

Jim just smirked at him. “ Well as to your frustration levels, Tiger: I rather thought you might prefer to be tied to the bed.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bargains, memories, and plans...

Sebastian’s world tilted in an odd way, “Are… uh… you… aren’t… upset?” he cleared his throat, “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about… me.”

“I’m upset at a lot of things, Tiger; you aren’t one of them.”

For some reason all of his education and command of English seemed to have completely left him. “You… we’re past… that guy?”

Jim smiled a bit–one of his vicious smiles, not a pleasant one, but Sebastian didn’t think it was aimed at him– “oh yes, he’s dead and buried in several different places…”

“Almost a pity,” Sebastian grumbled. “He… he looked a lot like me? Really?”

“Enough…” Jim shook his head, “but I do NOT want to talk about him right now.  How did you ever manage?”

“Manage what?”

“Me?  I was an obnoxious little shit…”

“Uh... You… actually no you weren’t… you were… uh… scared.”

“I’m not going to blow up at you for pointing that out, Tiger–as long as no one else is around.”  Jim leaned over slowly until his head was resting on Sebastian’s shoulder.

Sebastian carefully put his arm around him, “Are…  You said you almost killed me, so we’re past the point where you hired me…?”

“I… yes… I was… I remember  I was planning something with Sherlock… it’s not as clean a transition this time–probably because of all the sedatives, but possibly because we’re getting closer to the point at which I was drugged… it was really an untested drug?”

“Mostly untested… not… ‘not ready for valuable targets’, Mycroft said.”

“Mycroft.” Jim sighed, “Best to get it over with…Give me your phone, Tiger.”

Sebastian handed it over and given that Jim was still curled into his side he couldn’t help but see him type in Mycroft’s private number–from memory: he put the phone on speaker.

“Mycroft Holmes.”

“It’s me this time.” 

“… I…” Mycroft cleared his throat, “I trust Mister Moran got you the identification paperwork…”

“I had no idea you still had it–I haven’t seen James Dougherty in quite a while.”

“Neither have I,” Mycroft said quietly, and then seemed to steel his voice, “So what now?”

“I won’t bother Sherly-locks if he doesn’t bother me…”

“… Thank you.”

“You probably have him running off doing all sorts of work, don’t you?”

“He… was going to be, yes, but… if Porlock is behind what happened to you, I am not willing to trust my brother’s safety doing more work for MI6.”

Sebastian didn’t have all the information, but… trusting Porlock with anyone seemed like a bad idea–and working for him?  _Altogether too easy to arrange accidents..._

Jim laughed, “So he’s just stuffed off waiting? He must be bored…”

“I am afraid so, yes… I… haven’t told him you are alive.”

“Maybe I’m not,” Jim said it lightly but the tension in his body told a different story. “… My death was public, and I take it my fail safes went off?”

“ARE going off…can you stop them?”

“Then it may work out better that I stay very publicly dead, and… as to your question? Possibly.” Jim looked up at Sebastian and then back at the phone, “I… do not entirely trust your word any more Mycroft.”

There was a pause: “…Understandable.”

“I should, by rights, leave you to shut it down yourself–it would be enough that I promise to let Sherly go…”

There was a longer pause before Mycroft spoke again. “It… would be– however much I dislike the concept– but you sound as though you have an alternative?”

“I want James Dougherty completely cleaned and re-activated– PTSD and retired on a medical– the rest of my identities scrubbed from the system and Sebastian’s record cleaned up… and pull any trace of his identity out of MI6 files.”

Sebastian sat up a bit more, _MY record cleaned up? Wha…? And… reactivating…_ he bit his lip and tried to stay out if it: this was both way over his head, and going into history he didn’t know.

“I… could do that, although it will take time.  What do I get in exchange?” Mycroft sounded cautious and curious.

“I’ll tell you how to stop some of my failsafes–it’s too late to stop some of them– and I’ll stop the rest that I can.  I may, possibly, not remember all of them yet–my memory is still a bit lacking, but… a test drug? I may never get back the last year …”

“Done.” Mycroft’s voice was crisp and businesslike. “A pity Moriarty died on the roof–we did have an autopsy on the body of course; someday you must tell me how you managed it.”

“Someday I might remember.”  Jim curled a bit further into Sebastian.

“When can I get the call off codes?”

“I’ll give you some now, and put some on hold… everything else happens when your part of the bargain is concluded.”

“Agreed.”

Jim reached up and pulled Sebastian’s arm more tightly around him. “So now that the business is concluded: Mycroft… Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

Mycroft’s voice went from crisp professionalism to hesitance. “… I had no idea he would be used to harm you, James: perhaps I should have realized, but I didn’t.  I knew he was there to keep an eye on you and your business–I… thought that was fair: people don’t just quit.”

Jim’s fingers dug into Sebastian’s arm. “You thought it was FAIR that my lover was a spy?”

“No.  I… must admit that I simply assumed that the spy had been pulled into your orbit and… couldn’t or wouldn’t say no to a relationship:  he would not have been the first agent to fall for his target.”

Jim’s fingers relaxed a bit and he sat there leaning into Sebastian for a while–no one said else said anything.  Eventually Jim said: “He claimed you knew–all of it.”

“What?” Mycroft made noises that sounded like muffled swearing, “He was lying!”

Jim’s voice was dark, and he was tense against Sebastian when he answered: “He wasn’t in any condition to be that coherent, Mycroft… not by then.”

There was a noise of clicking–Sebastian had a recollection of a pocket watch from his meeting with the man. “He may have been told I did, but all that I knew was that he was a spy–nothing further.”

“That’s enough…”

“Yes, my duty was to keep silent on it–and perhaps I justified that to myself–but… I should have talked to… if I couldn’t speak to you about it I could have talked to him about your relationship… I regret not doing so.”

“Mycroft… some day you need to get the stick out of your ass and spend some time in the real world.”

“You are not the first person to say that.” Mycroft admitted quietly.

Jim hissed, “I TRUSTED you, Mycroft:  I can count the number of people I ever trusted on one hand.”

More quietly, “I never knew you trusted me–I never knew you trusted anyone.”

“People like Christopher… and you… are the reason I don’t.”  Jim paused and then continued, “I’m exhausted, and frankly I half want to keep the failsafe cascade going just to spite you, but they’d affect the stock market too much, and since I’m going to be living a bit longer I can’t have that–investments you know.”

For some reason Mycroft laughed briefly and then coughed to clear his throat and said, “Obviously not.”

 _Must be some kind of private joke_ , Sebastian thought, but then Jim was saying something again.

“Porlock is mine, Mycroft–I wouldn’t wish anything this horrific on anyone.”

“It… sounded extremely bad… Your memories seemed to jump from event to event?”

“As far as my point of view?  I was… I was in my life, and something happened, and then I would wake up… here.  The time I spoke to you directly I had been in the cell and then being tortured and then… here.”  Jim said very quietly, “I couldn’t stand the idea of being thrown back.”

“Quite understandable.” Sebastian heard the sound of Mycroft handling a pill case again.

Jim sat up suddenly nearly throwing off Sebastian’s arm. “Don’t take them, Mycroft.”

“Pardon?”

“They’re drugged… your medication…  I don’t know why I know, but I do…”

“…why would they be drugged?”

“I don’t REMEMBER!” Jim snarled, “I just know they are… or maybe were? Or maybe I … it could be a fail safe?  … I have bits and pieces that haven’t fallen into place…”

“I will have them tested.”

“Test any pill you take, Mycroft: all I can be certain of is that they are pills, and they are yours, and they are drugged…” Jim suddenly stopped and snickered, “Send them to your brother–he’s bored.”

“Ah… naturally.”

Jim started giving him codes, and words… well most of it Sebastian didn’t understand, but it seemed to make sense to Mycroft judging from the conversation. “–and I’ll start working on putting what I can on hold on my side, but the clocks ticking on some of it.”

“I shall get the work done on your identities as quickly as I can.”  Mycroft paused, “I cannot help you get to Porlock, but… I won’t look.” He cleared his throat, “and… thank you for telling me about the pills, although I hope you are wrong.”

Jim nodded slowly, “Merlin.”

“Morgan.” Mycroft replied, apparently by reflex because he then made a ‘hrmm’ noise.

Jim reached forward and hung up; he sagged back into Sebastian. “He sounds like he didn’t know… but… Christopher was certain he was involved.”

“Could it have been Porlock going behind his back again?”

“…Possible… I… don’t know.  I need to get online and put things on hold…” Jim said, not moving.

“How about if I make you some hot chocolate… or… oh hell you’re over due to eat…” Sebastian was torn between making him food and… staying here.

“I’m not normally this clingy…” Jim sighed, curling back into Sebastian’s arm.

“No… the last few… well, you’ve been… “

“Been what?”

“Acting like someone who wanted a hug but kept getting hit.” Sebastian admitted.

“… Don’t know that I ever wanted a hug, but you’re not wrong about the hitting–at least when I was a kid.”

“You uh… started pretty young with your knife work–it wasn’t bad, for fourteen.”

Jim snorted, “I thought I was all that and a side of chips and I was just… well I was fourteen.”  He twisted his neck and looked up at Sebastian, “You… I never really thought about it; you must have been so confused…”

“Confused is one word, terrified is another.” Sebastian admitted. “I’ve been used to you not making sense, but… because you were just that far over my head? Or I wasn’t being told things…and… you went from threatening me for flirting–which I totally understand now!– to uh… a bit sex obsessed.” He muttered, “I had to keep telling myself you weren’t in your right mind and you thought you were fourteen… but then you kept wanting to tie me to the bed and… ”

Sebastian finally asked the question that he’d been wondering about for a while, “I admit YOU tying me to the bed sounds like a good idea–at least when you say it– but… isn’t fourteen a bit young to be into that?” _Fourteen is a bit young to be into anything…_

“You were hot, but anyone as big as you are, as obviously strong as you are?  That would hurt if we had sex–at fourteen anyway–but you were hot,” Jim smiled…”Still are–were–whatever… If I tied you down I could control it, and… it was less likely to hurt.”

Jim shrugged into his side, “At fourteen I didn’t have too many options–although I was working on a few… and you were damn hot…” he muttered, “but pretty scary.” He continued a bit distantly, “By  the time I grew up I’d just developed a taste for control, and you can do so many interesting things with ropes, even if I hardly had time, or anyone I trusted….”

 He very reluctantly sat up, “Go get us food, Tiger–I’ll trust that Mycroft will be too busy to try to have us arrested tonight.”

Sebastian frowned, “I… don’t think HE would, but… is it possible that Porlock has an inside tap on his business? I mean... they work together?”

Jim turned and stared at him and then started swearing–Sebastian at least recognized a few of the words– “My brain has turned to MUSH! He probably does… I… I have to hope Mycroft realizes it, but… he may not be thinking straight–his brother is his whole world.” Jim pushed himself up, “We’re moving: I’ll make a few calls.”

…

With Jim having most of his memory back arranging to get out of France went fast.  Two days later they were in London again.  London, not Switzerland, because Jim said no one would expect him to come back: Sebastian thought he just preferred familiar surroundings, but he wasn’t going to say that.

Sebastian had no idea what Jim had been doing on the computer  while they were traveling–he left that to Jim–but he was glad to finally arrive at a secured safe house again, because he’d been on guard  for too long.

The plus side was that over the past two days Jim had seemed stable at about one year, give or take, before the current time. Maybe he was right and those memories were gone, but at least that jump wasn’t likely to be as traumatic if it did happen.  Apparently he’d always had some bits of memories–as he’d said back at the beginning– that were just so out of context he couldn’t figure them out: Mycroft’s pills, images of people he didn’t meet until late in his life… and the sounds and impressions of a prison cell he had shared with Mycroft.

He wouldn’t talk about that except to say it was bad.

Apparently he had also been remembering bits and pieces of his life with the bastard–Sebastian couldn’t think of him as anything so polite as ‘Christopher’– but kept mixing those memories up as being Sebastian…

…which made sense since he had Sebastian right in front of him…

…But every time he thought about it Sebastian wanted to hit something very hard… a lot.

 

Once Sebastian checked the safe house–one he hadn’t known about– and everything was settled, he made Jim promise him that he wouldn’t take any chances, and he fell into bed….

…

Sebastian woke up slowly–he was becoming entirely too used to sleeping with Jim in his arms–he didn’t even wake up when Jim wandered around and came back to bed anymore.

“Tiger?” 

Sebastian cracked open an eye and saw coffee–Jim was holding it.  “Coooooffffeeee….” He extended a hand out toward it.

Jim laughed, “Oh no you don’t… at least sit up!”

“Five more minutes?” Sebastian pulled the pillow over his head.

“Get up or I pour your coffee out– I made you the horrid stuff, now get up and drink it.”

Sebastian obediently got up–he’d actually gotten enough sleep anyway, and in a bed not a hospital chair–“Thank you, sir.  Incidentally, if you ever make me sleep in a hospital chair again I’m sending you the bill for my chiropractor.” He sipped at the coffee; surprisingly for someone who hated the stuff Jim made excellent coffee.

“I’m sorry you went through that…” Jim sighed and sat down on the bed next to him, “I hope you never find out what it’s like from my side.”

Sebastian took a few more sips and then reached an arm around Jim–he leaned into it. “I said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am REALLY impressed by how well you held it together.  I … I didn’t know what else to do… I hope–”

Suddenly there were fingers in his hair pulling his head down, and Jim was kissing him… somehow the coffee cup was plucked out of his hand and put on the bedside table…somehow Jim was on his lap and Sebastian didn’t want to go ANYWHERE: _here was great, I’ll just stay here._

“Tiger, I’ve been wanting to do something about you, in a bed, since… well,” he chuckled, “Since I was fourteen… or since I started watching you work out a couple years back, depending on your point of view.”

“You like watching me work out? Hey… wait… when did you see me work out?”

“Err… I have cameras in your flat.”

Sebastian was startled, but… “I guess, given everything, that that makes sense…”

“I may also have been a jealous fucker, when you brought those girls home… I was… I was almost angry and almost relieved that you were clearly straight, but then you made a pass…” Jim kissed him again, and moved against him in his lap in a way that derailed Sebastian’s brain.

“Girls?” Sebastian blinked at him after he came up for air, “Don’t recall… there’s a Moriarty in my lap; kinda has my attention.”

“I set things up: we’ll have a shot at Porlock in a couple of days and we really shouldn’t go out much until then… whatever shall we do to pass the time?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ahhh smut... and issues

“You… uh… could tie me to the bed, now that you remember who I am…”

Jim pushed him back onto the bed, “Oh I plan to… but… later.” And he crawled on top of him, “I mean… I’m going to have to punish you for going to bed without your stripes… but..” he leaned forward onto Sebastian’s chest, “First I have to reward you for managing everything so brilliantly  in my… absence, of a sort.”

“Go to bed… stripes… yes, sir…” Sebastian was staring up into a smirking face that knew exactly what he wanted and was going to get it–not that Sebastian had any reasons left to argue.

“So… obviously you aren’t straight…” Jim purred down at him.

“I have already forgotten every girl I ever saw…” Sebastian said fervently, “but I think at some point in my past I was bi…” he brought his arms up and when Jim didn’t say anything he wrapped them around him.

“Was bi? Not presently?”

“What’s a girl?” Sebastian said with the straightest face he could manage.

Jim snickered; “Maybe someday we’ll have a threesome, if you want…” and he leaned down and licked a stripe up Sebastian’s neck.

Sebastian tilted his head back, “I pretty much think… that you may be… all I could ever handle in bed…”

“You’re not wrong…” Jim snickered, and then started nipping at Sebastian’s jawline while he did something REALLY fascinating with his hips.

“This is unfair… you have too many clothes on… so do I…”

“You’re just wearing boxers.” Jim teased–and teased!

“Too many clothes: I said that.” Sebastian gasped.

“I don’t mind girls…” Jim said and there was the unmistakable sound of a knife whispering out of its sheath, “but it’s purely aesthetic… not sexual…” and Sebastian felt the cold kiss of metal against his hip, and then Jim moved and the cold brushed his other… _Oh, he cut the boxers off._

Sebastian wanted to be sure he understood…“In all honesty, and jokes aside… I prefer girls in general… but… uh… you are definitely at the top of my interest list… by… a lot.” Sebastian carefully started peeling him out of his clothes. “Why are you wearing clothes? That’s just wrong…”

Jim let himself be peeled out of the clothing, “No need to spell it out, Sebastian…”

“I… I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings–and if YOU wanted a threesome that’s fine, but… honestly it usually meant trying to keep track of too many people and not enough bed…”

Jim stared down at him and cracked up.  He was lying on top of him laughing, “Tiger?  However do you manage being such a stone cold perfect killer and being so…. So…” he waved.

Sebastian tried to pull his dignity together, “Am I wrong?  Usually in a threesome someone gets left out…”

“Only if its two girls and one guy… which admittedly is what a lot of guys want–but they want to watch the two girls until they get hot and bothered and then have both girls fawning on them… it’s not about the girls having fun.”

“…aaaand there’s where it falls apart for me.” Sebastian wrapped his arms around Jim, “I’m more of an ‘everyone has fun’ kind of guy…”

Jim sighed a bit sadly, “Sex… was work.  It was work or manipulation…”

“If you don’t want to…” _I can live on cold showers, I can… probably._

“Tiger… I want to blow your poor sheltered mind and make you roar…” he grinned that manic devilish grin that spelled trouble, “in fact why not start there… “ and he slithered down  Sebastian’s body to his–

_OhHolyFUCK!_

“Your mouth… oh my God… how…!” and that was the last time Sebastian could form words for a while.

Sebastian had certainly had blowjobs before–or he thought he had: _apparently not_.  He had no idea exactly what Jim was DOING, because he couldn’t concentrate on anything but sensation, and then… _oh my god…_ he finally put together… _was he SWALLOWING around …_   Sebastian managed to lift his head enough to look down and Jim looked up with wicked dark eyes and … hummed… or something…

Sebastian’s head fell back on the pillows as his entire body tried to arch up into that sensation.

Sebastian was fairly certain he screamed as he came… he was also fairly certain he blacked out or overloaded for a moment…

The first thing he could piece together when the spots stopped dancing in front of his eyes was that Jim was snickering at him.

“Oh… oh that was a TREAT… I denied myself that for years?  Damn…”

“You… how could… that was…”

Jim smirked even more and lazily crawled up Sebastian’s body, “now… that was lovely, but it’s well past time for breakfast, or lunch… and if you are a VERY good Tiger, I might be convinced to do that again– and a bit more– after I eat something other than Tiger parts…”

“Get… food… and you’ll do that again, yes SIR!... uh… what would you like?” Sebastian tried to get up and Jim lay back in bed and stretched… which distracted him.

“Oh… I seem to have developed a fondness for beef…” and he reached out and drew a finger down Sebastian’s abs.

“If you want me to go get you food, you’ll have to stop doing that…”

Jim put out both hands, “help me up, Tiger; I’m not as young as I was when we met…”

Sebastian couldn’t help but snicker and pulled him off the bed… they were delayed getting anything else done by some truly excellent kissing, but eventually Jim murmured softly into his ear, “get me food or I start frying strips of tiger.”

You never could be positive with Moriarty what was a real threat and what was just encouragement to get going, so Sebastian hurried into the kitchen and started making food.

Jim sort of sauntered in a few minutes later and sat there watching Sebastian’s ass with an intensity that… well it was nice, but sort of spooky.

“I wouldn’t mind you eating my ass, sir, but I totally draw the line at you using a fork.” He glanced over his shoulder in time to see the look on jims face just before he cackled–that was the only possible word for it.

“Fair enough, Sebie.” Jim ran his tongue over his teeth, “But I assure you I can use a knife in ways you have never even dreamt of…”

“No forks, no knives… and no spoons unless they are for eating ice cream off me.” Sebastian said firmly.

“Has someone eaten ice cream off you?”

“I ate ice cream off of someone else– it was … they’d apparently read about it in some porn or another and wanted to try it?” Sebastian shrugged, “It turns out to be WAY too messy to be worthwhile, but  the whipped cream was fun…”

Jim appeared to be contemplating that so Sebastian went back to making up a quick breakfast and getting it on the table.

Once they were eating, Jim cleared his throat, “so... uh… other than the things I saw in your flat–and… well… I’m not actually sorry about bugging your flat, but it was…”

Sebastian waved it off, “you had good reasons.  I’m more embarrassed than upset.”

“So… I only ever saw you bring home girls… and not often, although some nights you didn’t go home..”

“I prefer girls, in general, as I said…” Sebastian glanced at him, “I’m… look, Jim, I’ll totally take whatever I can get with you, but… I’m more interested in a steady thing… so… my casual stuff was just that, casual… when I didn’t have… a relationship.”  He poked dubiously at an egg, “I’d… like this to be serious, not  just…”

Jim put a hand on his hand, “Good.”

“Good?”

“Casual sex is work, Sebastian… or, well, at least ‘work’ in the sense that I’m manipulating someone: it used to be work, but you know that.”

Sebastian was certain he turned beet red, “I’m sure you could manipulate the hell out of someone with sex, sir…”

Jim snickered,  “Glad to see I haven’t lost my touch, but… uh… honestly? Unless I’ve forgotten something–which I may have– I haven’t had sex with anyone in years.”

“What?”

Jim’s hand tightened around Sebastian’s, “It’s hard for me to trust someone enough to… to have sex with them except… because I had to?  Christopher was the last…” Jim’s face went ugly and tight and Sebastian pulled him into a hug before he even thought about it.

“If he hadn’t already died I would so kill that bastard…” Sebastian pulled Jim onto his lap as best he could and growled.

“I know, Tiger… I do…” Jim pulled himself together, although he didn’t try to move away, “I… think I may have wanted to–have sex, I mean– a few times, but… I kept having… I was certain that anyone I let into my bed would try to kill me…” he leaned up and kissed Sebastian on the cheek, “You’ve been in bed with me almost every night since this started, and not only didn’t you hurt me you never even tried to have sex–you wanted sex, any idiot could see that.”

“I certainly did, and do, but… uh… you were a lot more interesting as you… grew up.” Sebastian sighed, “And then I was worrying about the sword over my head–that bastard with my looks.”

“He… he looked a lot like you from certain angles…” Jim pulled back and smiled slightly, “he didn’t move like you do… and his shoulders and arms were different.”

“Not SAS trained and not a sniper I take it?”

“No, he’d… he’d been military, I never paid much attention to what branch. And then he went to work for intelligence, apparently.”

Sebastian stopped and looked down at him, “Wait… for Porlock?”

“I… hadn’t thought so?  Sir Edwin’s predecessor… John Garvie… was in charge then…”

“I think we need to ask Porlock what he knew about it…”

“Agreed.” Jim shook his head, “I’m going to take my breakfast and do some work and… not think about this for a bit.  You should get your things put together and… order in a late lunch or early dinner for us.”

Sebastian made sure his breakfast was in reach of the computer and attended to various things, and then when it was almost time to eat he got an idea…

When Jim came in to get food Sebastian was doing push-ups.

“Well HellO Sebastian…” Jim sounded very interested.

“I should be doing this with weights and resistance…” Sebastian stopped and looked back at him and grinned… “Feel like helping out?”

“And exactly how do I help?” Jim came over and ran his hand over Sebastian’s back.

“You can sit on my ass or shoulders while I do the next set.”

Jim promptly climbed on and lay down almost full length on him, “Like that?”

“Just like that.”  Sebastian went back to push ups, and Jim started… moving… in a way that was very distracting. Of course since that was more or less what Sebastian wanted he didn’t mind.

“You… need to do this in bed…” Jim growled into his ear.

“Do I?” Sebastian smirked, “with you under or over?”

“Let’s start with me on top, and see where it goes…”

“Sir, yes, sir…”  Sebastian pushed to his feet and reached around to support Jim piggy-back style… Jim wrapped his legs around him and pointed at the bedroom.

Sebastian was already stripped to his jock strap and it didn’t take Jim long to strip… and to find the lube, at which point there was a pause because Jim stared at it and muttered, “I can’t use this.”

Sebastian plucked it out of his hands and pitched it in the trash without looking, “How about oil? We have olive oil in the kitchen?”

Jim stared at him and then smirked, “Well we aren’t using condoms… so… why not?”

Sebastian blinked a few times, “Oh... I never asked… we aren’t?”

“I saw your last test results… oh, wait… no I didn’t? That was a while ago…” Jim frowned, “And I don’t REMEMBER if I’ve been exposed to anything.  Shit.”

“Double shit…” Sebastian frowned, “Do we have condoms?” 

He shrugged as Jim sat on the bed slowly, “I mean my last blood test was fine, and I usually DO use a condom–especially the last few years, I was a bit of an idiot when I was younger… but… you’ve been in interrogation, and drugged…”

“No… if we have any in this house I … I couldn’t use them anyway.”

 _Bad memories… fuck._ “Right.  You clean up the place and … eat something–I’ll run to the druggist: anything you like specifically… and… uh, better tell me what brands NOT to buy.”

Jim  gave him a short list of ‘never buy this’ and Sebastian pulled on his clothes and went to the nearest druggist, cursing Christopher in his head the entire way.

He was checking out when he saw someone else coming into the store: he moved in a way that screamed ‘professional’ in the worst way. Sebastian asked the nice clerk to put his packages aside–“forgot something! Right back…” and he smiled at her and wandered off as though he was looking for candy.

Sure enough the professional bastard headed that way, and  there was someone else near the exit… he hit the phone buttons without looking down and  started  muttering out loud about candy… “did he say Jelly Babies?  He’s such a kid… “ 

He grabbed some candy and went back to the checkout. “Miss? Sorry about the delay…” he saw the professional guy head outside, but his friend was waiting at the front door watching him.

Sebastian pulled out the phone in addition to his wallet–the call to Jim was still connected. “Miss, I’m going to pay for this and then I need you to  do me a favor… that guy by the door is trouble–I don’t know if he’s trying to rob the place or what but I saw a gun… I need you to hit whatever alarms you have, and no way am I going out past him…”

Her eyes went wide, “I… uh… a gun?!”

“Yes ma’am.  I was in the military; I know guns when I see them.  Hit the alarm and duck.  Is there a back door?” and he paid for the purchases.

She mostly stared at him and was being a bit too obvious so he leaned forward as though he was flirting and took her hand, “Miss… seriously… you’re being very obviously scared… Just take the money, and  act like you’re trying to flirt or something, then hit the fire alarm or the police call.”

She nodded and  did something with the cash register. “Police call–I tripped the silent alarm… I hope you’re right, my boss will KILL me…”

“Blame me if so, but  I don’t think I ‘m wrong.”  He  gave her a very broad grin and nodded toward the back, “what about we pretend to go off and  make out?  Seriously I don’t want you in the line of fire.”

She nodded and plastered a completely phony smile on her face, “If this is an excuse to feel me up I swear I will”

“Honey… I got lube and stuff for my BOYFRIEND and me… you’re cute, but no.”  She was cute and he would normally have been flirting for real, but  why tell her that.

She looked a bit startled and then a bit disappointed, but walked him back toward the back.  Sebastian put an arm around her and leaned in close–trying to look more than a bit friendly.  The guy at the door frowned and talked into his phone, but didn’t move.   _They probably have people out back, too._

As soon as they were out of sight Sebastian nodded, “Run to the ladies room and lock yourself in if you can… “

And he hit the back door running.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> evade, escape, and plan for payback... oh, and meet Gregory Lestrade  
> (remember this is not that long after the Reichenbach fall and Greg got a lot of the blame- he's not in a great position at the MET right now)

Sebastian hit the back door and was through at full speed to avoid any possible ambush: no one was there. _Sloppy_.

The back door was alarmed, so it was one more thing to attract police attention and throw them off, but it did give away his position. The alley behind the druggist was narrow– backing onto other businesses and dumpsters–all the doors closed and likely locked, and _no one out cadging a fag right now, Damn it._   Clear line of fire down the alley from each end –only cover was the dumpsters.

Sebastian considered and started climbing the opposite building wall: top of the dumpster as quietly as he could, grab the window ledge, up, take a deep breath and a gamble and jump….

He was scrambling to pull himself further up when he saw motion at the end of the alley–thank God they were not looking up yet: more worried about him hiding behind a dumpster, or in one.   And thank the God of Tigers and Snipers the window was cracked open up here… he managed to slide it open and get inside.

He very slowly and carefully closed the window and blinds behind himself and looked around– it looked like a private flat above one of the shops: whoever they were Sebastian loved them and owed them a cake.  He looked around very carefully and slowly moved around, taking stock:  no sign that anyone was going to be back soon.  He pulled the phone back out of his pocket.

“Sir, are you still there?” he spoke quietly.

“Little busy, Tiger.” Jim’s voice answered equally quietly. “Someone broke into the house.”

“what?!” _Shit shit shit shit shit… I didn’t even know about that house, how did anyone else find it?!_

“Are you safe?” Jim asked.

“For now, you?”

“Oh I’m never safe…” Jim’s voice sounded deadly, “but I’m not IN danger…”

“I should be protecting you–”

Jim’s voice softened a hair, “you did, Sebie; now I can protect myself… just stay safe.”

“I can hide out here for a while–not sure I can move without being spotted.”

“When you can get out without too much risk go to Baker street–there’s no reason for you to be there, it’s not one of my holdings so…”

“Meet you there?”

“Maybe, or maybe I’ll text and tell you where to meet me.” He hung up.

Sebastian sat down on the floor– up against the wall and behind the sofa just in case– and let himself fall apart briefly.  He pulled himself together because he heard sirens: a quick look out of cracked blinds didn’t see anything amiss, but then again from these angles he might not.  He let himself out the door carefully and down the stairs–out onto a different street than he had started on, of course.  He was trying to blend in and stay out of sight when he spotted a familiar face…

 _DI Lestrade?  What’s he doing here?_   Sebastian hung back in the crowd… he looked a bit beaten down, and… _right, Sherlock died… and Jim made it look like he was a fraud… that had to be having an impact on  Lestrade…_

Sebastian saw a few people that looked suspiciously intelligence-like _: the problem is I don’t know if they work for a problem or not–I have to assume so–but Lestrade was associated with the Holmes boys…_ Sebastian had to make a decision right now or lose the chance.

Sebastian slipped up near Lestrade, keeping cars between himself and the suspicious folks. “DI Lestrade?”

“Not at the moment…” he sighed, “How can I help you?”

“Long story, but… I need to duck some very dangerous people and I recognized you.”

“And I’m supposed to do what?  What dangerous people?”

“I work in intelligence,” Sebastian said quietly, “and right now with the fallout from Sherlock there’s infighting going on that involves Mycroft Holmes…”

Lestrade winced. “Getting involved with the Holmes again? Not a good idea…”

“Can you get me out of here? Preferably to Baker Street–I can meet my contact there, but if not… anyplace that isn’t here…”

Lestrade looked him over, “You work for Mycroft?”

Sebastian took a gamble, “No, I work for someone who is allied with Antarctica–” and he saw the name recognition: Lestrade knew Mycroft’s code name alright. “But I don’t work with him directly.  He knows who I am, though.”

Lestrade got a key and opened the back of a squad car. “Get in, use the blanket, and understand that I’m going to check your story.”

 _Fuck if I have a choice_. Sebastian got in and Lestrade threw his coat in the back on top of him and locked it.  He got up front and got out his phone, “What do I say?”

“Tell him Morgan and Tiger were found by… problems.  You can just explain that I needed your help to get out–I’m Tiger.”

Lestrade dialed and after a pause Sebastian heard him say, “Mycroft?  Someone just asked me to help them leave a crime scene–they said they work for an ally of yours?”

A pause, and then: “he said, ‘tell him Morgan and Tiger were found by problems.’  He says he’s Tiger–I was helping handle crowd issues based on a report of possible drug gang or terrorists actions holding up a druggist…”

Lestrade gave a precise police description of Sebastian: height, estimated weight, hair and eye color, and then added, “looked like he was unhappy to be approaching me, but he said he recognized me and wanted to go to Baker Street to meet his contact–or anyplace not here.”

A pause. “No, he very expressly said he didn’t work for you, but an ally…”

Another pause, “He’s lying in the back seat of the patrol car.”

The car started up and Sebastian could only pray that the people hunting him weren’t actually working for Mycroft Holmes…

“Alright,” Lestrade said tiredly, “Mycroft Holmes says you owe him an explanation, and to take you to Baker Street… do I get to know what’s going on?”

Sebastian started breathing again, “I don’t think you want to be involved, mate–more than you are already… if you really want me to, though, I’ll tell you…”

“…I’ll ask Mycroft Holmes someday… just… were you threatening the girl that–”

“No! I was the one who told her about the men after me.  I may have implied they were there to rob the store… but if they tried to take me down in the druggist's there would have been shooting–I wanted her to hit the alarms, and she did.”

“Oh.”

“I even paid for my purchases,” Sebastian grumbled, “had to leave them behind when I ran though.”

“What were you buying?”

Sebastian figured it was just reflex to ask. “Uh… condoms and lube? I left Morgan back at the safe house…”

“Oh, uh… oh… do… we... do you need to call her?”

“Morgan’s a him,” Sebastian corrected– _were all the police blankets this musty smelling_?– “and I already did call: apparently the bad guys got to the safe house too, but he got out… last I heard.” Sebastian sighed, “I’m… kind of worried.”

Lestrade didn’t say anything for a bit and Sebastian wondered if he was one of the gay bashing cops… “You can sit up now, that blanket is old and probably stinks…”

Sebastian sat up gratefully, “Yeah it does.”

“Might…uh… not want to tell Mycroft about you two…”

“Eh?”

“He’s a bit… judgmental about some things… I have no idea how he is with... uh...”

“I’m bi, Morgan’s gay, and Mycroft knows that.  He also knew about Morgan’s previous boyfriend…”

Lestrade pulled the car to a stop just down from 221 Baker Street. “He’s… okay with that?”

Sebastian blinked a few times, “He didn’t seem not okay with it…”  then he looked at Lestrade’s pensive expression, “Don’t tell me you’re interested in the Iceman?”

“He’s a very attractive and well-dressed man,” Lestrade said defensively, “and I’m bi too and my ex-wife left me a bit burned out on women, but no, it had never occurred to me to even think about making a pass at Mycroft Holmes.”

“You’re bi? I would have thought you’d make a pass at Sherlock then… oh… sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry for mentioning him… he was… he was a good friend.” Lestrade sighed, “I pulled him out of too many overdoses, and cleaned up too many of his messes to think of him as anything other than a strange sort of little brother, I could never date him…God, I still can’t believe he’d gone…”

“I’m… sorry.  I never knew him, just… heard about him–Morgan said he was brilliant, and… well I’m sorry for what it’s worth.” _And hopefully you find out he isn’t dead soon._

“Thank you.” Lestrade got out and came around to open his door. “Please don’t get me involved in anything like this again?”

“I didn’t intend to get you involved in this, but thanks Inspector.”

“Call me Greg; this isn’t really police business, even if Mycroft will probably manage to make it look like it is.”

“I’m Sebastian.” Sebastian shook the man’s hand, “Thanks.”

Lestrade glanced up the street, “Don’t mess anything up in the flat, and… I don’t know if John will be there–he keeps moving out and coming back…”

“Right… I haven’t met him either… thanks again.” Sebastian nodded and turned to walk off before people asked too many questions about a police car letting him out here.

He hadn’t quite gotten to the door when a taxi pulled over.  He would have ignored it but his phone buzzed in his pocket… he glanced at the cab– _Jim behind the wheel_.  He walked over and got in as if that’s what he’d always meant to do.

“Are you alright Tiger?” Jim sounded fine…

“I’m fine, are you?”

“The blood isn’t mine; don’t worry.”

“Blood?”

“It got a bit messy,” Jim said sounding very cheerful.

“I uh… you don’t normally do that much hands on work, but... you obviously know how–have since you were fourteen,” Sebastian grinned briefly at the joke and then got serious. “How the hell did they find us though?”

“Apparently Sir Edwin must have at least seen the reports from Christopher– that was one of my usual houses when… when we were together.”

 _Right, still stocked with the lube and condoms you two used, and I never knew it existed_. “So… now what?”

“Now we pay Sir Edwin an earlier visit than I had planned…”


	12. Eleanor Rigby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Porlock.  
> (entirely obvious TW in notes)

Somehow, impossibly, Jim had the codes for Sir Edwin’s security system.  It didn’t get them past the guards–they had to do that the old fashioned way–but it did prevent any alarms from going off: they slipped past the outer perimeter quietly.

“I guess they’re used to depending on the alarms?” Sebastian asked quietly, “but shouldn’t we have killed them?”

“”They need to be in place or Sir Edwin will know something’s wrong when he comes in.”

“Oh.” Sebastian felt stupid about it, but they didn’t have time to coddle his ego.

Jim told him to hold his fire unless expressly ordered…Much to Sebastian’s shock two of Sir Edwin’s house security guards–the inner security– worked for Jim: once they recovered from the shock of his being alive and he snapped at them they fell in line.  Of course once they switched sides it was easier because apparently they had access to tranquilizer darts…

_I do NOT want to know why his household guards have access to tranquilizer darts._

It didn’t take long before the rest of the household staff was out cold and restrained in an out of the way room… and then they waited.

Well, Sebastian waited–Jim started hacking into his computer.

…

Sir Edwin strode into the sitting room, snarling at his aide about incompetent agents– _Must be talking about the boys who tried to pick us up this time_ : Sebastian hit the aide with a tranquilizer dart.  Sir Edwin’s reactions were slow– _not a combatant_ – and he ended up staring in shock as his aide collapsed.

“Hello, Porlock.” Jim– _no, definitely Moriarty right now_ – he had his ‘I’m going to feed you your own kidney and you’ll say thank you’ voice on; it sent chills down Sebastian’s spine and he wasn’t even the target.

Edwin turned and tried to run only to find Sebastian: Sebastian put him down on his knees with his arms twisted behind him.

“It’s very rude to leave when Mister Moriarty isn’t done with you, you know…” Sebastian growled at him–he’d meant to be all cool and calm but he just wanted to break the man.

“You tested…” Moriarty walked over casually, “TESTED!  A drug… on me!” he did his ‘shocked’ face.

“It… it was tested!”  He didn’t even try to deny being involved–must have realized it was pointless.

“Two human tests?  I got into the records, darling…” Moriarty walked around them slowly; Sir Edwin kept twisting to try to track where he was, so Sebastian pushed his head into the carpet.

“Whatever did you expect? Hmmm?  What would have been your best possible outcome… me forgetting you entirely? Did you think you could use me as your little puppet?”

“No!  I swear I just… you should have forgotten about our last business–That’s all!”

“Why? Don’t you trust me to keep my deals…? No, of course not… after all you have no intention of keeping yours…” Jim waved at Sebastian to pull his head up–he did of course– and Jim crouched down to look him in the eyes.  “Maybe I should test it on you, hmm?”

He gasped and then started babbling about how it obviously hadn’t done Moriarty any harm… Sebastian pushed his arm up further behind his back until the man stopped talking.

“Tiger?  He isn’t likely to talk much if you break his shoulder.” Moriarty stood up and walked away a few feet.

“Sorry Sir… he’s aggravating.  Can I just break him in a few spots? Maybe he’ll get to the point…” Sebastian let up on his arm a hair.

“Do you have any of that drug here?”

“…no…” he wheezed, “No… it’s… restricted and accounted for I … just the one injector…”

Jim suddenly cocked his head and then smirked, “What did you do with the injector?”

He froze and Sebastian pulled his arm up again, “AH!”

“What… did you do… with the injector?”

“My safe…. My home office… in my safe… God…”

Moriarty snapped his fingers and Sebastian pulled him to his feet.  They walked into the office and Moriarty looked at the safe… “Oh for…Really?  That brand?  They don’t even have an automatic alarm for the wrong combination!”  He pulled on his gloves again and rolled his eyes, “Give me the combination or I’ll have Tiger there start breaking fingers.”

“Can I?!” Sebastian asked VERY happily.

He gave up the combination– _coward_.  Jim opened the safe and started pulling out files… “Boring, Boring… OOoh? Does the Iceman know you have this at home?... boring… ah… there we are…”  he pulled out an injector–it looked like an Epi-Pen only the wrong color.

“It didn’t hurt you!  It didn’t!”

The look on Moriarty’s face stopped him in mid protest.  Jim held up the injector, “If I was a merciful man, Sir Edwin, I would just give you the rest of this...but I’m not. You lived a privileged and comfortable life; it wouldn’t be nearly the HELL YOU MADE ME GO THROUGH!” he screamed the last part into the man’s face.

Moriarty pulled himself together abruptly. “Tiger?  Better restrain the man before I forget how much I want to ask him and just start peeling parts of him off–besides, I like his office rug.”

“Yes, sir.”

They sent one of Jim’s people out for his car, sedated the outside guards and tied them up, and then sedated their own people and put them in the same room…

“Safe open, guards sedated and restrained, and the head of MI6 missing… dear me, what a security mess!” Moriarty patted Sir Edwin on the cheek.

“Holmes… Mycroft Holmes suspects you are alive–he’s been poking around… I could help cover up!” He was protesting as Sebastian more or less dragged him out to the car.

“Oh, you expect him to rescue you? How adorable…” and they gagged him and locked him in the boot.

Jim drove… the manic edge bled out of him until he was just… driving.

“He’s a real piece of work.” Sebastian growled. “Where are we going?”  He paused and asked, “Also please tell me you’ll let me hit him a few times? Please?”

“Oh… I’ll INSIST on you hitting him a few times, Tiger…as to where?...” Jim chewed on his lip a bit, “The most soundproofed and off the books place I have is where I… took Christopher, when we caught up to him.”

“Oh.  Uh… you never told me much about the bastard… or what happened… I only know the basics.”

“Not while I’m driving Tiger,” Jim said quietly.

It was painfully silent in the car until Sebastian suggested music, and then they had a cheerful argument over radio stations and each other’s choice of music until they pulled into a machine shop outside of London.

It was old, and dirty, and in lousy repair… and only looked marginally better on the inside. _Mostly cosmetic, though._ Jim turned on a few pieces of equipment and they unloaded  Sir Edwin from the boot–he was a bit worse for wear from the ride, but unlike he had with Sensible, Sebastian  felt not the slightest bit of sympathy. The idiot tried to struggle as Jim waved Sebastian into another work room and closed the door.

“Sensible was a lot more sensible.” Sebastian grumbled.

“Yes, yes he was.” Jim activated a winch from the ceiling–a heavy winch and chain like you’d use to haul engine blocks around. “Hang him up, Tiger.”

Sebastian knew from the military how effective suspension was at taking the fight out of people.  In fairly short order Sir Edwin was  hanging from his wrists, and Jim had adjusted the winch until he was just on his feet.

“Can I HIT him yet?”

“Sure thing, Tiger… better yet, let him get a good look at you first…”

Sebastian walked around to in front of him and the man gasped… “Agent  Rigby?!”

Jim sang, “–Wearing the face that she kept in a jar by the door…” and then he walked up and trailed a hand over Sebastian, “No… he does look quite a bit like dear Christopher, doesn’t he?  I did finally take Agent Rigby’s face off… it annoyed me… but I didn’t keep it in a jar, such a wasted opportunity…”

Sir Edwin stared at Moriarty as if he was trying to decide if he was serious, but his eyes kept tracking back over to Sebastian… “You… aren’t…?” he shook his head and looked back at Moriarty, “I can be much more use to you–”

“You are of use to me for a handful of things only, Porlock… and the less trouble I have getting them the faster I will kill you.”

“You can’t get away with that, I’m much more–”

“You? You are nothing at all: you’re a worm, a fly… a tiny little annoyance in my spider web…” Moriarty then growled suddenly, “except that you have managed to get my PERSONAL negative attention….”

He stepped back, “Tiger?  Explain to the man about how PAINFUL life is in the world… just make sure you don’t kill him and he can talk, alright?”

 _Finally!_ Sebastian smiled, “With pleasure.” And stripped off his shirt–after a glance at Moriarty he stripped down to his boxer shorts and his shoes and socks.

Moriarty smiled and walked over and ran his hands over Sebastian in that strange possessive fashion he always had… but this time… Sebastian suddenly realized the difference: this time he wasn’t  hesitating, or pulling his hand away… what Sebastian had taken for flirting and teasing was… old memories and pain.

Sebastian ducked his head and dropped to one knee in front of him. Jim startled momentarily and then walked around, trailing his fingers over Sebastian’s shoulders… and ended up leaning up against his back, leaning on his shoulder, speaking over his head… “That is a point, Sebastian–clothes.  I’d like to see him bruise… I need to see him hurt…” he retreated and pulled over a folding chair and sat down.

Sebastian got up and Moriarty handed him a knife: Sebastian cut the clothes off of Porlock, and pulled his shoes off. Hanging nude in chains did tend to take the dignity out of someone. He returned Moriarty’s knife–Moriarty was looking past him with that shark-like blankness in his eyes.

Porlock had been trying to bargain, then threaten, and then plead, but neither of them had been paying much attention.

Jim held up a hand, “Before  Sebastian gets started, let me try to put this in small words for you  Porlock:  you are going to die–after what you did to me there was never any other possibility–the big question is… how long do you spend  in pain?  You see, if you cooperate and give me the information I want right away?  That time will be brief… if not? Well… Christopher lived for almost a week, and honestly it was the infection from the bullet that killed him…” Moriarty sat back with a smile and waved permission at Sebastian.

Most of the time Sebastian was a very easy going man: it was the rest of the time that got him into trouble–had him labeled a problem, ended up with people dead or broken.  Sebastian liked killing people–liked hurting people– once he got started: he just didn’t like hurting innocent people.

He was very good at it, mind you; the military had made certain of that…

But Sir Edwin wasn’t innocent…

Sebastian smiled at the man and lashed out–quick jabs, the kind that you didn’t realize how badly they hurt until the next one had landed and gone.  It was surprisingly difficult to beat someone thoroughly and not kill them or knock them unconscious…Sebastian always liked a challenge.

Porlock started out screaming, but he pretty quickly stopped being able to, as getting enough air took priority.  Sebastian took advantage of  his being unable to keep his head up to  dart in and hit him by surprise from different angles, circling him and striking… never hard enough to break anything  but aiming for nerve clusters, sensitive places… Sebastian was having fun.

Porlock was down to moans and faint groans as he was prowling around the man when Moriarty’s voice snapped his attention over…

“Tiger…” His voice was odd, “Tiger how did I never know you could do that…?”

Sebastian blinked the sweat out of his eyes and saw Moriarty walking over at him looking… avid. “I will question the bastard later… I’m fucking you right now.” He pointed to a garage mat off to one side.

Sebastian tried to think but honestly his blood was up and he just picked Jim up and took him over to the mat.

“Put me DOWN!” His voice was more startled than angry.

He put him down carefully. “Yes, sir: It was faster,” Sebastian panted and dropped onto the mat, “I’m afraid I left the package at the chemist’s…” _and I don’t care._

A kiss of metal at both hips and his pants were pulled off of him, “I’ll punish you for that later–luckily I had one of my people pick some up and hand it off at Sir Edwin’s…”

 _Brilliant Jim!  Wonderful Jim!_   “Please fuck me, sir…”

Jim growled commands at him, and before long Sebastian was finding out exactly how talented those fingers were…

“Please!  More…” Sebastian panted and  begged and thankfully Jim wasn’t inclined to  delay… when he pushed into him  Sebastian felt every  moment of it… none of it registered as pain, or even discomfort, after having worked himself up hitting… _someone_ … _that guy… unimportant._

Jim fucked him in a way that could have been brutal or desperate or maybe both: Sebastian submitted and felt like a part of him had come home.  He belonged to this man and if Jim wanted to have him on a mat in a garage after he’d just beaten the head of MI6 to a bloody wreck?  Well that was obviously a great idea!

Jim finally spent his aggression–and a few other things– into Sebastian and then… he reached around and wrapped those talented fingers around Sebastian…

“Good Tigers get rewarded….”

“Please!” that was all he could manage and it came out as a rumbling moan.

Jim toyed with him and teased him while mouthing at his shoulders and licking the sweat off of him… Sebastian came suddenly and collapsed on the mat.   Jim lay on top of him murmuring, “What a spectacular Tiger… I knew I liked watching you work out… I may have to keep him alive just to watch you hit him again…”

“Whatever… you want…” Sebastian gasped and slowly pushed himself back to his knees.

“But I do need a few answers…” Jim stretched and got up.  Sebastian rolled over and pushed himself up to kneeling on the mat and watched him tuck himself back in his trousers–he hadn’t even gotten out of them– and stalk over to Porlock.

“Feel like answering a few questions, Porlock?  Or do you need to have a bit of a rest… don’t worry, I’m certain Sebastian will be up to starting again soon…”

He made a moaning noise and gasped for air: Jim walked over and picked up the remote, “A bit of a rest then?” and the chain played out–dropping him to the floor.

“Sebastian?”

“Sir?”

Jim smiled over at him–not Moriarty but Jim– and gestured for him to come over: Sebastian retrieved a shoe that had come off and came over to Jim: “Yes sir?”

Jim ran a hand over his arm, “I don’t think I’m in so much of a hurry to get the information as I thought… but I definitely want a solid meal and a bed… a nice bed with a Tiger in it.”

“I can definitely support this concept, sir.”

“Go retrieve your clothes–you’ll just have to go commando.”

Sebastian just grinned and started pulling on his clothes. 

Jim wandered over to Porlock: “Anytime you feel like chatting, darling, this can all be over…”

He groaned something that sounded like an attempt at talking and Jim got him a cup of water. “What was that?” he said politely.  Sebastian came over and watched Porlock dubiously just in case he tried anything.

“What… you… haven’t asked…”

“Oh, just the usual… what on earth did you want me to forget so badly, why did you think you’d get away with it; what were you going to do if it worked…”

Jim leaned into Sebastian, “Oh, yes… and you seem rather more clued in on Christopher than I would expect…”

The man seemed to be trying to answer, and not doing that well.

“Err… I may have overdone it? “

“I suspect you aren’t used to working over the desk set, Tiger…” he turned and pulled Sebastian down into a scorching kiss, “But I didn’t exactly stop you, either,” he murmured.

Jim walked over to what looked like a mechanics large tool box, and after a bit of noises that sounded like… well like tools, he came back with an injector–not the one from Porlock’s safe.  He stabbed it into the major muscle and Porlock jerked… after a few moments he looked more alert…

“ A bit of adrenaline… you’ll crash in a bit but I’m feeling generous: you have a few minutes to answer my questions, and if I believe you I MIGHT cut your throat.”

Porlock babbled:  Jim asked him polite questions from the chair, and… Sebastian listened in horror to the answers.

Porlock had been working with Moriarty–getting the records of Sherlock Holmes stealing the Bruce-Partington plans, for instance– with the goal of gaining control of Mycroft Holmes.  Sebastian could see it: Jim thought Mycroft was behind Christopher–more than he had been– and was working to destroy the man; Porlock was trying to increase his power… and Sherlock was a lever for them both.

Porlock had also helped Moriarty in procuring a duplicate body and forging all of the records to make sure they matched–MI6 had the resources for it after all.  Porlock’s men had simply injected Jim–with a hand held injector, not a dart– when he showed up to meet after the roof….

Except it hadn’t worked quickly enough because Moriarty had killed one of the men, wounded another , and escaped.

…and Jim had been right:  Sir Edwin had hoped that the drug would create a pliable Moriarty who could be fed a new version of events, controlled, and so on, but if it didn’t work?  Moriarty was disposable at this point and thus an excellent first field test as far as Porlock was concerned.

Sebastian took a step forward–he didn’t have anything coherent in mind but mangling the bastard sounded nice: Jim put an arm out to stop him.

“And Christopher?” Jim asked politely, as though it was nothing but idle curiosity, but Sebastian could feel the tension in his hand.

“I… I knew about him…”

“Obviously,” Jim yawned, “How MUCH did you know? When? And… how much was your idea, not Garvie’s?”

“It was… it was his idea…”

“You know you aren’t even faking sincerity well?  It occurs to me that  Agent Rigby thought Mycroft was involved–he thought he gave the kill order in fact… now why would  Garvie tell him that?... but you–you  would…”

Sebastian felt like his feet had frozen to the floor:  _Christopher had thought that MYCROFT gave the final kill order? That Mycroft had not only been aware of it all, but had…._ _Oh my God_ … “Porlock orchestrated the whole thing?”  _All of it: the entire action against Sherlock was because Moriarty thought Mycroft had…_

“I believe he did.” Jim said idly. “Of course he couldn’t have known that Christopher would fail… but if he did fail–as he did–I might find out about ‘Mycroft’ ordering it all… and if not?  Well one more problem removed–me– and on to trying to move against Mycroft…  Oh!…”

Jim sat back suddenly… “Oh that’s… I have to admit Porlock that’s elegant… you wanted Christopher to inherit my business if he succeeded….” Porlock simply slumped there.

“Would… would he have?” Sebastian asked.

“… He could have, Tiger– inherited anyway, not that he could have managed what I do.”

Jim pressed the buttons on the winch control and Porlock was hauled back to his feet:  Jim got up and walked over, Sebastian following him. “So did you talk Garvie into it from the start, I wonder? Or did you just act behind his back? Or… no… a bit of both I expect…” 

Jim rather suddenly had a blade in his hand and leaned down behind Porlock, He moved his wrist in a casual flick and Porlock screamed… Jim did it again before he turned and walked away–he hit the release on the winch and Porlock collapsed.  Sebastian glanced back to see just a bit of blood–not much.

“Sir?”

“Hamstrings… you do need them to do anything but crawl… and if I want him on his feet? Well that’s why I have the winch.” Jim tossed the controller onto the table by the door. “Come along Tiger, I’m tired.”

Sebastian followed him back out and up: there was a plain but clean flat above the machine shop.

Jim stripped mechanically–his eyes on something far away, probably in the past.  Sebastian asked quietly, “Is there a shower?”

“Yes… none of the water has been run in the building lately…”

Sebastian  ran the shower until it stopped spitting and the water wasn’t rust colored, and got them both cleaned up… the bed had luckily been covered completely with a dust cover, and if it was a tiny bit musty Sebastian didn’t care.  He pulled Jim into the bed and curled around him.

“I’m here; you’re safe, and I will happily skin him for you–you always said you wanted to make shoes out of someone.”

Jim smiled faintly and turned to curl into Sebastian, “Nah… it’s just a good threat: human hide would make terrible shoes.”

Sebastian rubbed his face into Jim’s hair–he always smelled nice–“do you want to talk about–”

“I don’t want to talk, Tiger… just… hold me.”

Sebastian did, running his hands over the man and occasionally humming some song or another until Jim fell asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porlock was never going to die fast if either of them had anything to say about it. while i don't go in for detailed torture scenes... Porlock gets hurt badly (and long over due in my opinion)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbxTlxuECJA


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a not so lazy morning in bed... and then back to Porlock...

Sebastian woke up because Jim was thrashing in the bed.  His first thought was some further issue with the memory drug, but….no, probably a nightmare.  Sebastian curled around him and went back to muttering soothing things at him until his breathing evened out.

“Sebastian….” Jim finally asked, “Do I actually give you the impression that muttering ‘I’ll skin him for you’ and ‘shoes, he can be shoes’ is… uh… comforting?”

“Yes?”

He started snickering, and finally ended up laughing into Sebastian’s chest.

“I take it it isn’t?”

“Well, confusion is a good way to snap me out of it, so I guess?” Jim laughed.

“I doubt that there are any breakfast fixings here… uh… do I go get stuff?”

“There’s coffee downstairs.  I can send you out later… maybe.” Jim licked Sebastian’s chest, “of course breakfast in bed sounds nice… I’ll have beefcake…”

“Can… can I…”

“Can you what?”

“Can I run my hands all over you the way I always wanted to, now that you’re… uh… now that you remember?  It was pretty damn fantastic being fucked, but… I didn’t get to touch you much…”

“… you are a very strange man, Sebastian… sure?”  Jim pulled back a bit. “How do you want me?”

Sebastian carefully rolled onto his back and pulled Jim on top of him. “Here’s good.”

Jim smirked down at him, “with you all helpless?”

“I’m not helpless…” Sebastian started letting his hands wander, watching Jim… “You were always so good looking and I could never touch you…”

“Hmmm…” Jim closed his eyes and breathed deeply… “You don’t smell like him at all… and your hands are different…”

“I’m glad?  Although I’m still furious that bastard looked anything like me.”

Jim opened his eyes and reached down to stroke Sebastian’s dick, “well… only his face and height… not….” He paused, “now there’s something…”

Jim climbed off of Sebastian,” stay there!” and got out the lubrication and condoms… then he stopped, “uh… ok, bathroom break first!”

Sebastian thought about it and had to agree…

After they’d taken turns in the very small bathroom Sebastian got back on the bed, “my turn to ask: how do you want me?”

“Just the way you were…” Jim crawled onto the bed and lay down next to him, and reached out and started stroking and petting Sebastian–all over.

“Well Sebie, you obviously enjoyed being fucked… do you like the reverse? Penetrating?”

“Yes.” Sebastian smiled faintly, “I… uh… actually like being the receptive  party just a bit more, but I think it’s because so many people expect me to be… well… aggressive and dominant? It makes a nice change.”

Jim just smiled and started rolling a condom onto Sebastian… “I think you’ll like this then…” and he climbed back on top of Sebastian.  Looking down at him Jim got the most wicked look on his face, “I happen to like ‘bottoming’ but you know I dislike being anything but dominant…”

And then Sebastian gasped as Jim lifted himself up and came back down… with Sebastian inside of him.  He moved slowly and deliberately making little happy purring noises…

Sebastian brought his hands up to rest on Jim’s sides, marveling: _I never dreamed of this, never in a million years…_ and then he was completely in, and Jim started to move…

Sebastian moaned and tried to thrust, but Jim just laughed, “You can keep your hands up here, Tiger, but this is my ride…” and Jim drew his fingers down Sebastian’s chest and twisted and moved… and it was deliriously wonderful, and…

Sebastian watched Jim over him, moving like he was dancing… Sebastian had seen him dance at clubs on occasion, and it had left him hard and sullen and usually pulling some girl for the night and feeling… unsatisfied.  He’d wanted that movement; that wicked smirk; that innocent abandon that could turn in a heartbeat …

This was everything he’d ever wanted and all he could do was enjoy it.

“Gorgeous… God… you… I always loved watching you move… Please!  Oh god…”

When Jim let him come–sometime… it could have been forever or five minutes, he had no idea– he focused on Jim, still above him, but now leaning down over him with a serious expression…

“You… look like him, Sebastian… but you don’t feel like him, and you don’t touch like him, and you don’t move like he did…” and Jim leaned down and kissed him.

Sebastian would have stayed like that forever… but the room wasn’t entirely comfortable, and they both desperately wanted food–or caffeine at least– so eventually they got themselves out of bed.

Jim checked his phone, “Hmm? Ah, Mycroft texted…” he looked at his phone a bit and smiled, “Apparently the head of MI6 was kidnapped–terrible, isn’t it?”

Sebastian grinned, “oh just awful… that reminds me, do you want me to hit him some more?”

“I suppose we should see if he’s alive… shock and all.”

He was: he looked a rather unhealthy shade of grey–except for where the bruises were in all their Technicolor glory–but he was still alive.

“Porlock my DEAR friend,” Jim sat down  on the chair facing Sir Edwin while Sebastian tried to make coffee in a coffee maker that appeared to be held together with bailing wire and hope.

“You… you have what you want…”

“True.  Although honestly I doubt you’ve suffered NEARLY enough–do you know I very nearly murdered Sebastian because of his resemblance to Christopher?  Do you know that I very nearly murdered… oh… half of the royal family, the Prime Minister… random civilians at major  gathering places, because of my failsafes going off?”

Sebastian didn’t hear an answer.  Eventually Jim continued, “just for that drug– just for the HELL you put me through with that drug–you should have a long time suffering ahead of you… but I’m a fairly generous soul sometimes…”

Sebastian came over with the coffee. “There’s fake creamer–I don’t like it but I don’t know if you wanted it–but they had sugar.”

“Thank you, darling…”  His phone rang and he answered after a glance. “Merlin.”

 _Ah, Mycroft_?  Sebastian stayed quiet and sipped his coffee. Sir Edwin tried to yell, to call out, but Jim ignored him: Sebastian walked over towards him and he shut up.

“Oh, not at all… As I was just explaining to my guest I’m a very generous soul… If you bring the take out I’ll order and come alone I’ll give you the address–you can ask him yourself.” Jim hung up.  

He smiled at Sir Edwin, “Do you honestly think I’m fool enough to answer a phone call if anyone cared about you?  I would have had you gagged first at the least, or gone outside… don’t be any more of an idiot than you have to be.”

Jim spent a few moments texting and then looked over at Sebastian, “Any special requests for food? I was thinking Thai…”

“I like meat.”

Jim smirked, “what a coincidence, so do I…” Jim looked him over and went back to texting.

Jim did tell Sebastian how to find some bottles of electrolyte that were stashed in the shop:  he fed a bottle to Porlock and they waited.  Sebastian did his best to work on Jim’s shoulders–he sounded calm but he was surprisingly tense.  Eventually Jim sent him out to bring Mycroft in.

The first thing Sebastian verified was that he was, in fact, alone–not that  that was a guarantee of safety–he could have sent someone else the address– but he had come by himself.  He also came bearing some bags that smelled like food.

“I expect the place is somewhat… greasy?” Mycroft said unhappily while staring at the building.

“Grimy, more like,” Sebastian admitted.

“Charming.”  Mycroft waved him at the bags and turned to walk in.

“Hold it.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, “yes?  I did as–”

“I’m not YOUR minion, Mycroft–hell, I’m not even sure what I am to Jim at this point–but if you want me to carry your packages? You ASK me.”

Mycroft looked at him thoughtfully for a count of three and then nodded slightly, “Quite right–I’m afraid James and I have that in common–we both tend to be rather…. Brusque, when we have other business we are attending to.”

“If brusque is code for treating other people like servants and furniture? Yeah.” Sebastian shook his head.

“Could you get the bags, then, Mister Moran?”

“Certainly.” Sebastian nodded and got the bags–they smelled good– and escorted him in.

From what he could see Sir Edwin had a momentary glimmer of hope, quickly dashed when Mycroft ignored the  badly beaten and crippled man in chains to walk over to Jim.

“I admit not a location I would have expected, given that you dislike noise and grime nearly as much as I do…”

Jim turned in the chair and looked him up and down, “not QUITE the same… or perhaps we define noise differently… but it has its uses–among other things he could scream bloody murder–and did briefly– and no one will hear him over the equipment in the other room.”

“Where do you want the food?” Sebastian  asked.

Jim waved off in a direction, “There should be a folding table… and another clean chair or two… can you get them set up?”

Sebastian put the bags down and got out the table and two more chairs.  He heard Sir Edwin making noise–it sounded like orders or demands as he walked away but by the time he brought back the table it was pleading…

Mycroft appeared to be ignoring him.

“– Porlock was running Christopher… up to and including the kill order… and implicated you…” Jim was casually draped across the chair, swinging a foot–Sebastian suspected he couldn’t get up, and that he was swinging his foot to burn off the tension.

Sebastian set up the table, and the chairs. “They seem to be clean…” He nodded at the chair for Mycroft.

“Thank you.” Mycroft nodded and turned back to Jim, “I reiterate: I knew he was a spy: I certainly had NO idea he was going to try to harm you.”

“Hmm… did you get the results on your pills?”

“… Yes.  Some of my medications were adulterated–Sherlock is delighted and assures me he will have a complete report soon.”

“I still don’t remember what was wrong with them.” Jim shrugged, “or why, although I could make guesses.  In any event I helped Porlock here get his current position by assisting in framing John Garvie… because after all Garvie was the signature on Christopher’s orders.”

“I rather… assumed you were behind some of that.” Mycroft Holmes looked over at the huddled Sir Edwin, “HE was involved in that? I had no idea…”

“Mmm Hmmm.”

…

Sebastian sat quietly and ate while they had the damned oddest conversation: sometimes it seemed like they started a discussion part way through, sometimes they stopped  and picked up  apparently in a different place, a few times they sat in a very awkward silence until one or the other  picked up talking again.

Porlock occasionally tried to say something and they ignored him so thoroughly that Sebastian started to wonder if maybe he was hallucinating the man being there at all.

Eventually Mycroft asked, “Can you pull him to his feet?” and it took Sebastian a moment to realize they were, in fact, acknowledging Porlock’s existence.

“Certainly–I hamstrung him so…” Jim pushed buttons on the controls and he was hauled to his feet.

They BOTH looked annoyed at him screaming–Mycroft pursed his lips and looked disapproving; Jim made faces.

Mycroft got up and walked over. “Porlock… I would ask why, but betrayal and power grabs are the same no matter what: I’m certain you had some justification for your actions as far as you are concerned. Let me make it quite clear: I do not care.  You have caused me personal harm, and endangered my brother by your actions–I expect you don’t care about that, but all of the failsafes are entirely your fault…”

“He could have avoided THOSE just by not having me drugged, but he wanted to test his drugs, and possibly gain an easily controlled puppet with no memory…”

“Of course…” Mycroft looked back at Jim, “Colonel Moran’s work I assume?”

“Well, except for the hamstringing, yes.”

Mycroft gave Sebastian a glance, “Amazing that you were not considered for government work, ah well…” he turned back to Sir Edwin, “Answer my questions, honestly and completely, and I will kill you; otherwise I will leave you here for however long you survive.”

Jim made an annoyed sound, “Really?”

“Yes.” Mycroft answered, “in any event he doesn’t look well–you’d get at best a few more days from him.”

“What… I answered… what do you want…?”

Mycroft asked similar questions to the ones Jim had asked, but with specifics– dates, people involved and political implications– as well as some questions that didn’t appear to have anything to do with Jim: Porlock answered, not always coherently, but he answered.

Mycroft eventually nodded and stepped back, “I always knew you were ambitious, But I clearly underestimated HOW ambitious… I shall remedy that blind spot in future.”

“If you want to cut his throat the drain is over there…” Jim pointed.

“I rather expect you’d like to do the honors?”  Mycroft made a face.

“Still don’t like blood?”

“No.” Mycroft answered shortly.

Jim wandered over and started walking around him slowly, playing with a knife in his hands. “Sebastian? Take Mycroft outside, will you?”

“Do you need me?”

“I’ll text if I do… shoo.”

Sebastian escorted the man outside.  He promptly lit a cigarette, “would you care for one?”

“God yes…” Sebastian gratefully accepted. “I haven’t been able to have even one since this mess started–no time off, really.” He inhaled–it was a very much smoother smoke than he was used to, probably expensive.

“I quit… again…”

“I only smoke on my down time anyway–can’t do it when you’re sniping: gives away your position.”

Mycroft nodded.  “Did he… talk to you about Christopher?”

“Not… much.” Sebastian admitted, “I heard more about him … well from the interrogation.  Sir Edwin thought I was him… Jim insists we don’t look THAT much alike, but we did or he wouldn’t have had an issue…”

Mycroft looked at him blankly for a moment and then pulled out his phone.  After a few passes at it he handed it to Sebastian…

There was a photo of a younger looking Mycroft trying to duck the photo, a smiling Jim, and a man who could have been Sebastian’s brother–if he had a brother– at a restaurant. Jim had his arm around the man and that man–Christopher– was apparently taking the photo…

“Good god…” Sebastian stared at a man who looked SO much like him.  The details were different–he had thinner arms, yes, and his shoulders weren’t as broad, his jawline had a sharper set to it–but at a glance?

“Agent Rigby… otherwise known as Christopher Harbin.” Mycroft took the phone back. “That was the last time I… the last time I sat down to a friendly meal with Jim.”

“You betrayed him… even if not as badly as he thought.” Sebastian said it by reflex, still thinking about how much the man looked like him.

“I… did not see it that way at the time, but yes… and of course I had no idea that I had been framed.”

“I expect finding proof that you knew about him would have been easy enough,” Sebastian  nodded and ground out the cigarette against the wall before pocketing the butt, “and that would have confirmed that you were involved…”

“Yes.” Mycroft waved at the door without looking, “can you go see if he’s done?”

“Blood?”

“I’ve been known to faint–a ridiculous issue, but it still happens.”

Sebastian was startled for a moment but then he thought about it… “Yeah, okay… one of my buddies in the military  had to lie down to get shots–they tried to make him get one standing up and he pitched into the doctor.”

“Precisely.  I have improved but…”

Sebastian nodded and went back inside.  He found Jim sitting down cleaning his knife–he was covered in blood even if the knife was apparently on its way to spotless.

“Uh…blood baths are supposed to be figurative…”

“Yeah… well… luckily I packed a spare bag.”

“I keep losing my clothes.”

"Go tell Mycroft he’s dead, and… tell him to get to work  on his side of the deal… we’ll need to  get rid of the body…”

Sebastian felt better back on familiar territory and went out to relay the information to Mycroft–and tell him it was a damn good thing he didn’t go in.

“I can imagine,” he shuddered, “James was always either fastidiously neat or … not.”  He walked back to his car.

“Good luck with the clean up on the political side.” Sebastian nodded.

“Ah, well I planned on that as soon as James told me his time was…. Limited.” Mycroft looked at him thoughtfully, “I… please do tell him I hope we will be able to … mend a few fences.”

Sebastian nodded and watched him drive away, and then went back in and started the process of getting rid of evidence that had until recently been called Porlock.

 


	14. Indecent Proposals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> its always with mixed feelings that i close a story... The end.

Once they got rid of Sir Edwin’s body–and getting rid of a body was a well-established routine so it didn’t take much– Jim moved them to a luxury flat near London.

 He spent most of his time on the computer, and a great deal of it apparently texting or messaging Mycroft.  Sebastian got a look at a few of the exchanges and it was mostly about failsafes–some of which were terrifying– and a bit about clearing Sherlock’s name: no matter how they went about it that was going to take time.

“It wouldn’t have been as easy to frame him if he hadn’t alienated so many people,” Jim said idly during a break from his work.  He was lying back against Sebastian’s chest while Sebastian fed him lunch.

“I’m sure,” Sebastian ran a hand down Jim’s side.  _I will never get over being able to do this, not ever._

“Still finding out everything you did?” Sebastian asked–Jim still had at best spotty memories of the past year.

“Yes, fortunately the failsafes follow my usual patterns and the actions against Sherlock have been public so I can figure them out.”

“That’s good… are they going to tell Watson he’s alive?  I felt kind of like shooting the guy might have been a mercy when Sherlock jumped.”

“Hmm? Oh, I hadn’t thought about it… or asked…” he twisted to look up at Sebastian, “Think I should?”

“Probably,” Sebastian nodded, “At least remind Mycroft about him–I don’t get the impression Mycroft  is thinking about him much with everything else going on… for that matter I doubt he has considered how much this affected Lestrade’s career–and I kind of owe him one.”

“He probably isn’t… his attention has been taken up with my failsafes, picking up after Porlock, and our deal… oh that reminds me: Mycroft says he has us both off the system–so you can go out without worrying about cameras and so can I.” Jim leaned further into Sebastian’s chest and showed no inclination to move.

“Here’s nice… I like it right here… but if you need me to go out…” Sebastian buried his nose in Jim’s hair.

“Eventually.” Jim wriggled himself back against Sebastian in a very distracting fashion, “When I go back to work I do need you to go out–we need more condoms and lube.”

“Oh!  A REASON to go out!”  Sebastian grinned, “Going to finally tie me to the bed?”

Jim twisted his head and looked up at Sebastian, “Weeellll, we have been mostly sticking to vanilla…”

“NOTHING you do is vanilla!”

Jim snickered and then asked a bit cautiously– _but maybe a bit hopefully?_ “Would you LIKE to be tied to the bed?”

“I assume so?  I mean as long as it’s you…” he cleared his throat, “being fucked on the mat was… uh… really hot… but a bit hasty.”

“Oh yeah…” Jim sighed and settled back against him, “That was… that was great… but yes a bit hasty–frankly I was about to come in my pants watching you, you magnificent brute.”

…

Eventually Sebastian went out and picked up the requested brands of lube, condoms… and made a trip to a very specific shop to pick up an order of rope.

He was a bit anxious at first, but when he managed several stops without being harassed, or followed he started to relax–all of which went completely out of his head at the ‘rope shop’.

“Uh…” Sebastian stood blinking at an array of leathers, equipment, and…

“Are you lost or just boggled?” a very small woman called out from behind the counter.

“My boyfriend sent me to pick up an order but… wow…”

“Oh? Oh!  The rope?”  The woman grinned and looked him over, “Oh… yeah, you’ll look good in that… just picking that up or..?”

“Can you suggest anything?” Sebastian started to grin, “My boyfriend apparently likes ropes…but I’d love to surprise him…”

“Have you got a credit card?”

“Yeah.”

She beckoned him over, “How badly do you want him to drool?”

…

Sebastian somehow managed to smuggle the extra packages into the flat while Jim was screaming at some minion on the phone.  It took him far more time to get into the outfit than he anticipated, and he was hard as a rock by the time he managed it– _if this has half the effect on Jim that it has on me? I won’t be walking straight for a week!_

After it had been quiet for a while he wrapped himself in a bathrobe and poked his head out, “Sir? Jim?”

“I thought you were back, Tiger… and oh do I have some aggression to work out…” Jim grinned at him and then frowned, “…what… you’re up to something…”

“I bought you a present at that last shop…sir…”

Jim smiled and then covered it up quickly, “Oh? Better hope I LIKE the present… you did get the rope?”

“Oh yes sir… and… uh… I like the present already…at least the first part.”

Jim looked intrigued and finally smiled openly, “Alright… let’s see…”

“Could you close your eyes?  Just for a minute…”

Sebastian had a moment of concern at what he’d just asked, but Jim closed his eyes, “Not for long, Tiger…I’m an impatient man…”

Sebastian shed the bathrobe and walked out into plain view. “You can open them…”

Jim opened his eyes, and then Sebastian couldn’t help but grin as he saw Jim’s eyes go almost comically wide. “Oh… ooooooh yes indeed I LIKE this present… I especially like the leather gift wrap….”

With the sales clerk’s help Sebastian had gotten leather pants–and they were driving him insane the way they felt when he moved– and a leather vest that left his shoulders and arms exposed… and leather cuffs, _just in case we didn’t get to the rope._  

Sebastian did his best to not whimper as he walked forward and he brought his one hand out from behind his back with the gift wrapped riding crop… “I have apparently been a VERY bad Tiger… sir.”

Jim just breathed, “oh never… never ever… you’re perfect…”

Sebastian slid to his knees–and this time he did whimper from the pull of the leather against him–“I’m uh… not going to hold out long, Sir… just pulling these pants on…”

“I have no idea how you got them ON, Tiger…” Jim stood up and took the riding crop out of his hands.  He walked around him slowly trailing his hand over Sebastian’s shoulders and back… Sebastian shivered from the difference between leather and skin.

“Bedroom, Tiger…” Jim almost purred into his ear, “Let me show you what I can do with those ropes…”

Jim had him kneel on the floor to start, with his hands behind his back. “Kind of you to get cuffs, Tiger, I do like the cuffs… let’s see what we can do…” and rope started being pulled and coiled around his arms and across his chest–over the leather vest.

“Not… taking… the leather off?”

“Oooh no, Tiger…” Jim’s voice was that rich deep tone that sent Sebastian’s nerves into over drive, “not so soon….” And a rope went between his legs and over his hip, and again and over the other hip… and pulled!

“Nggg! Ah… I don’t…” Sebastian panted… _I’d thought the leather was tight before…_

Jim just snickered and coiled rope and tugged, and then he was pulled up to his feet… and _dear GOD_ he felt like he was going to explode…

He was pulled over to a column in the bedroom.  “A lot of people hate these semi exposed beams and supports–too industrial for their tastes– I adore them: so good for hanging things or attaching them…” and Sebastian found himself laced to the   support.

Jim stepped back, “oh aren’t you just the PICTURE…”

Sebastian tried to say something but mostly he was panting as the leather and ropes were… keeping… him… on edge…

“Tiger got your tongue, Sebie?” Jim laughed.

“I’m going to explode… seriously… please, sir…”

Jim ran his hands up the leather pants, and the warm pressure was exquisite… and … then he was doing something with… _legs?  Oh, he was using another rope on my ankles?_

“Please” was becoming a litany… it didn’t even mean anything anymore… and then cool air suddenly hit his overheated groin…. He may have moaned… and then a mouth…. _oh God_ “Jim!”

He kept stopping, and starting, and going so slowly, and then not… and Sebastian  lost himself in begs and please and roars…. Jim alternately laughing and whispering in his ears… promises, threats… he couldn’t tell.

He was shivering, held up by the ropes alone when the pressure and warmth and tongue and a humming sound….

Sebastian was vaguely aware of being let down–every nerve singing and vibrating– and put on something soft….

When he came to himself again he was restrained to the bed and Jim was netting him in ropes– _my pants are gone? I think_ … “Sir…?”

“Such a wonderful Tiger… such a CONSIDERATE Tiger….” Jim’s voice was alternately growling and singing, “I just need a nice Tiger net, don’t you think?”

The ropes were pressing and pulling… he tried to move and it felt like they squeezed…

“Now just you stay calm, Sebastian…” Jim was snickering, “and you won’t even notice the ropes… oh, but however will you stay CALM? Hmm?”  And then Jim’s hands were all over him.

If he moved the ropes felt like they were alive, pulling and squeezing and  driving him  mad… but how could he not move when Jim’s hands were toying with him, petting at him, stroking and feather light… he would try to move up into a stroke and the ropes would pull… Eventually he was quivering in place, the ropes having pulled taut–stretching him out...

“Such a lovely roar you have… and such a beautiful whimper…” Jim purred into his ear, “I was a fool to deny myself this for so long…” and then Jim began to pick up the speed and the pressure and Sebastian was trembling in place, unable to move, to get away or toward… his entire body being played like vibrations on a spider web.

…

He slowly became aware that the tension in his arms and legs was easing… and Jim’s voice had taken on a gentler tone.

“So very perfect… oh… oh yes… and someday very very soon we will play with the crop you bought for me and perhaps something even better… but you were so utterly delicious in ropes…”

His head was being held up and sips of something– _electrolytes?_ – given to him… “J-Jim?  Did… am I dead?”

Jim chuckled, “No… why?”

“Not sure if I went to heaven or hell….”

“Both? Both is a thing…” and Jim leaned down and kissed him. 

His arms were free so he tried to wrap them around him but it didn’t work as well as he’d like. “Sorry?” he muttered after apparently having his arm flop rather jellyfish-like onto Jim.

“Oh don’t be, I think I should be flattered…”  Jim curled up against him.

Sebastian managed to get his nerves to send signals in the right direction and pulled him in closer. “I… take it the…” _words_? “Leather? On my legs? Pants! Yes pants! Were good?”

“Oh Myyyy you are still coming down, aren’t you…”

“How did ANYone ever… let you out of bed?” Sebastian blinked at him in confusion. “Much less try to hurt you?  I mean… I can see trying to KEEP you…” he glanced down at himself, “once they could move, I mean.”

“The leather looked delicious on you and I THINK it’s in one piece so you can definitely wear it again… I may buy you several more outfits… in fact I may insist that you wear nothing but leather unless you have to go out…” Jim smirked. “As to the rest of it? Wellll… someday I’ll fill you in on the parts you don’t know about my past, but… suffice it to say that very few people deserved my full attentions and so they didn’t get it.”

Sebastian kissed him on the head–he got a mouthful of hair anyway.  “I’m very glad you are recovered… and adult… and… all… but I have to admit that getting to know you a little bit as… as a younger person? Helped–helped me understand.”

“Did it?” Jim mused, “I suppose it would. From my perspective I kept… time traveling? And you were always there to take care of me, and… protect me… and God you were hot–still are, of course: you haven’t aged.”

“I’m glad you thought so… I’m… glad I could be some comfort… and… I am REALLY glad you didn’t kill me when you… “

“Recovered?  As I said when I was much younger, Tiger: that would be stupid.” Jim sighed and his hand played over Sebastian’s chest. “You just… I really don’t know why I thought you looked SO much like him–you don’t really.”

Sebastian chuckled, “Yeah, I do… if nothing else Porlock’s reaction would tell me that, but… Mycroft had a picture.”

Jim sat up a bit and looked down at him, puzzled, “File photo?”

“No… he said it was the last time… you two sat down for a friendly dinner?  That bastard had his arm around you and was taking a selfie; you were smiling–you looked happy– and Mycroft was trying to duck out of the photo…”

Jim stared at him for a long while and Sebastian worried that he’d spoiled the mood.  Eventually Jim stroked at his cheek, “I suppose I can’t see it anymore… but… odd of him to even have that photo, much less keep it… almost sentimental.”

Sebastian nodded, “he… seemed to be hopeful about you two mending your… friendship.” Sebastian cocked his head, “was it just that? Friendship?”

Jim settled against him again, “We never dated–were never lovers or anything if that’s what you mean.  We… went through hell together, and he was smart enough to keep up with anything I came up with… but he was calmer than I was… he got the nickname of the Iceman for a reason.”

Jim sighed, “I don’t know… I sometimes wonder if I would have TRIED to date him? Or even just… have sex?   But he always seemed so busy, and so reserved… I guess I just got comfortable meeting with him every now and then for dessert and conversation… or talking about work. But then I met Christopher and….” He trailed off.

“Lestrade–DI Lestrade?” Sebastian started and waited until Jim nodded, “seemed interested when I told him that Mycroft wasn’t upset about us.”

“Why would Mycroft be upset about us?”

“Lestrade thought he might be homophobic, I think… funny because I thought HE might be at first.” Sebastian grinned, “and he admitted that Mycroft was nice looking and dressed well…   Maybe Mycroft just needs to get out a bit more–if you catch my meaning.“

Jim laughed at that, “Oh… he definitely needs to get out more….DI Lestrade?  Huh. Not who I would have thought for him… but…” Jim shrugged, “I suspect my getting involved in his personal life is the last thing either of us needs… it will take time before we… before we can get past it all.”

“I expect it would.” Sebastian ran his hands down Jim’s back, “you know my nerves still aren’t  working right…damn good thing you never did that before a job–I couldn’t hit a target right now that was further out than the bedroom wall.”

Jim snickered into his chest. “Glad to hear it.  I am so going to ruin you Tiger.”

“Jim…in all honesty you ruined me for everyone else before we ever had sex, but if I wasn’t spoiled for anyone lesser by then? That first blow job did it…”

He looked smug.

After a while Sebastian’s nerves stopped ringing and they cleaned up and got some sleep. 

…

The next day Jim managed to stop the rest of the fail safe cascades that could be stopped–and handed advanced warning off on the things that couldn’t be.

Over a late lunch, or early dinner, Jim glanced at the print paper and froze…

“Sir?” Sebastian looked down at the paper but didn’t see much that was unexpected–there was a small article about ‘Sherlock the fraud’, admittedly.

“Magnusson?  Oh…  Oh I …” Jim looked up at Sebastian, “It’s not a lot of new memory, Sebie: I just put a few of the disconnected bits together with some of the older ones…”

“Ah.” Sebastian nodded, “Do you need to call Mycroft or is it something you need me to handle?”

He glanced back down and looked up with a wicked grin, “Someone needs to die very very much… I’m debating between having you use him as a punching bag and then fucking you silly again… or having you shoot him from an insane distance and then maybe letting you fuck me… decisions, decisions…”

Sebastian could scarcely breathe and that wicked grin was DOING things to him, “Can we find two people and do one of each?”

Jim walked over, predatory as a cat, “Now that I think about it?  Yes, yes we can… we can start a world tour of taking care of  some old problems–maybe a few new problems– and we can find different ways of doing it…” Jim slid into his lap and fisted his shirt, “Different ways of killing someone and different ways of having sex after each one… I’m inventive…” he kissed Sebastian breathless.

“Murder, violence and sex?  Sounds like a perfect honeymoon…” Sebastian panted and started kissing Jim’s neck.

Jim pushed him back, “it… does? That’s not…”

Sebastian  looked solemnly at Jim–sitting in his lap looking unsettled, “I… hadn’t really thought about it until I said it, but…I can’t think of anyone else I would ever want to be with, and… I suppose this should be done on one knee or something, but… Jim whatever-last-name-you-want…would you marry me?  It’s illegal as hell in most countries, but we are criminals…”

Jim stared at him.

“Jim? Uh… I’m serious… but… are you upset?... Jim?”

Jim melted against him suddenly, “Yes.” He said very quietly… “If you think you can… I’m not exactly the most stable person…”

“Noooo? Really?” Sebastian tilted his chin up and kissed him. “You’re a brilliant–maybe a bit crazy–man who loves violence and plans beautiful things and can make me enjoy being helpless and… well subordinate–and my military command can tell you how impossible THAT is–but…”

“but?”

“You also need me.  You aren’t dependent and you aren’t weak and you’ve proved just how competent you are over and over… but… it’s nice to be needed sometimes too.”

Jim smiled and… it was like he was young again for a minute. “I needed you desperately, Tiger–I just didn’t know it until recently… or years ago, depending on  how I remember time…”

Sebastian grinned, “I take it that’s a yes?”

“Yes.” Jim grinned back wickedly, “Now I have to punish you for not bringing me a ring– or chocolates at least…”

“Yes, sir.” Sebastian nodded solemnly, “I’m a very bad Tiger that way.”

They started their honeymoon a bit early…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what happened?
> 
> Their "honeymoon" ended up with a lot of deserving people quite dead-istarting with Magnussen-and Mycroft both admiring the work and being frustrated at the extra work it made for him...
> 
> Sherlock traveled and took care of some problems while his reputation was being repaired and his 'crimes' solved... but John Watson got to find out he was alive, and went with him for most of it. Mrs Hudson sent them cookies every now and then.
> 
> DI Lestrade was reassigned to a desk for a few months, but actually got interesting old cases to work on... and then got some interesting new field cases-mostly intelligence work so he occasionally got to meet with Mycroft Holmes to report in person.
> 
> Mycroft got pictures of restaurants from all over the world-usually after Jim had left that country: maybe that was why he took DI Lestrade up on that offer to "lets go get some dinner, eh? we're both long overdue..."
> 
> Molly found herself getting self help, confidence, and etc books and videos mailed (or emailed) to her from all over the world- and cat toys for Toby. she eventually figured out it was 'Jim from IT' and didn't get the whole story out of anyone until after Sherlock came back to London.
> 
> When Sherlock (and John) got back to England about two years after his death, Sherlock infuriated his brother by telling him he'd figured out Jim was alive before he LEFT London, and wasn't it about time you told me what was going on?


End file.
